PARCHIVE(1)

💖 PARCHIVE 💖

the <code>parchive</code> manual page, bestie edition — RAID vibes for your PAR ver 1.0 files, no cap

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✨ NAME ✨

parchive — data recovery that works like RAID, but for your PAR ver 1.0 files 🫶

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so here's the whole idea, and honestly? it's giving genius. parchive exists so you can take the data-recovery concepts from RAID-like systems and apply them to posting and recovering multi-part archives on Usenet. like, the same energy as a RAID array, but for your Usenet uploads. 💅

The current filespec and clients support the Reed-Soloman Code implementation, which lets you recover any X volumes as long as X parity volumes are present. literally just hand it enough parity and it'll stitch your missing pieces back together. iconic.

The key to this whole mission is a clean file format specification, one that gives programs all the capabilities they need to easily verify and regenerate single missing parts out of a set of archives. simple on purpose, bestie.

We might just be able to make binary posting and downloading on Usenet a little easier. that's a pretty cool goal! 🌈

⚠️ heads up: parchive only supports the old legacy version 1.0 PAR format. For new projects, use the par2 package — that's the one that supports the version 2.0 PAR format, and it comes with superior features. fr fr, don't start new stuff on 1.0.

also this manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program does not have a manual page. so yeah, we made it ourselves. 💖

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🎀 USAGE 🎀

here's the vibe. you pick a mode, you throw options at it, you point it at a par file.

parchive c(heck) [options] <par file>

Check parity archive — go look at it and tell me what's up. 🔍

parchive r(ecover) [options] <par file>

Restore missing volumes — the actual rescue mission. bring the missing pieces back. 🚑

parchive a(dd) [options] <par file> [files]

Add files to parity archive — new files, who dis? add them to the archive. ✨

parchive m(ix) [options]

Try to restore from all parity files at once — just yeet every parity file at it at the same time. 😤

parchive i(nteractive) [<par files>]

Interactive mode (very bare-bones) — it's interactive. it is also, and I cannot stress this enough, very bare-bones. manage your expectations accordingly bestie. 🙈

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

Options: (Can be turned off with +)

yep, that's the actual rule — anything here that starts with a - can be flipped off by using + instead. slay.

• -m — Move existing files out of the way.
• -f — Fix faulty filenames.
• -p<n> — Number of files per parity volume, where n is the number.
• -n<n> — Number of parity volumes to create, where n is the number.
• -d — Search for duplicate files.
• -k — Keep broken files.
• -s — Be smart if filenames are consistently different.
• +i — Do not add following files to parity volumes.
• +c — Do not create parity volumes.
• +C — Ignore case in filename comparisons.
• +H — Do not check control hashes.
• -v, +v — Increase or decrease verbosity. it's a dial, turn it either way. 🎚️
• -h, -? — Display this help.
• -- — Always treat following arguments as files. no more option-parsing shenanigans past this point, periodt.

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

The full documentation (such as it is) for parchive is maintained on the web site at

<http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=7717&group_id=30568>

(yes, "such as it is" — that's the original's own words, not mine, I would never do them like that 💀)

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

This manual page was written by Rene Weber <rene_debmaint@elvenlord.com>, and edited by Vince Mulhollon <vlm@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). 🫶 absolute icons, honestly.

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and that's the whole page bestie!! this was parchive 1.1, dated May 30 2004 — yeah it's an elder, but it still ate. go forth and recover your volumes. 💖✨🎀