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.Dd November 28, 2010
.Dt AR 5
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ar
.Nd archive file format for
.Xr ar 1
and
.Xr ranlib 1
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In ar.h
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Xr ar 1
archives are created and managed by the
.Xr ar 1
and
.Xr ranlib 1
utilities.
These archives are typically used during program development to
hold libraries of program objects.
An
.Xr ar 1
archive is contained in a single operating system file.
.Pp
This manual page documents two variants of the
.Xr ar 1
archive format: the BSD archive format, and the SVR4/GNU archive
format.
.Pp
In both variants the archive file starts with an identifying byte
sequence of the seven ASCII characters
.Sq Li "!<arch>"
followed by a ASCII linefeed character
.Po
see the constant
.Dq ARMAG
in the header file
.In ar.h
.Pc .
.Pp
Archive members follow the initial identifying byte sequence.
Each archive member is prefixed by a fixed size header describing the
file attributes associated with the member.
.Ss "Archive Headers"
An archive header describes the file attributes for the archive member that
follows it.
The
.Nm
format only supports a limited number of attributes: the file name,
the file creation time stamp, the uid and gid of the creator, the file
mode and the file size.
.Pp
Archive headers are placed at an even byte offset in the archive file.
If the data for an archive member ends at an odd byte offset, then a
padding byte with value 0x0A is used to position the next archive
header on an even byte offset.
.Pp
An archive header comprises the following fixed sized fields:
.Bl -tag -width "Li ar_name"
.It Ar ar_name
(16 bytes) The file name of the archive member.
The format of this field varies between the BSD and SVR4/GNU formats and
is described in more detail in the section
.Sx "Representing File Names"
below.
.It Ar ar_date
(12 bytes) The file modification time for the member in seconds since the
epoch, encoded as a decimal number.
.It Ar ar_uid
(6 bytes) The uid associated with the archive member, encoded as a
decimal number.
.It Ar ar_gid
(6 bytes) The gid associated with the archive member, encoded as a
decimal number.
.It Ar ar_mode
(8 bytes) The file mode for the archive member, encoded as an octal
number.
.It Ar ar_size
(10 bytes) In the SVR4/GNU archive format this field holds the size in
bytes of the archive member, encoded as a decimal number.
In the BSD archive format, for short file names, this field
holds the size in bytes of the archive member, encoded as a decimal
number.
For long file names
.Po
see
.Sx "Representing File Names"
below
.Pc ,
the field contains the combined size of the
archive member and its file name, encoded as a decimal number.
.It Ar ar_fmag
(2 bytes) This field holds 2 bytes with values 0x96 and 0x0A
respectively, marking the end of the header.
.El
.Pp
Unused bytes in the fields of an archive header are set to the value
0x20.
.Ss "Representing File Names"
The BSD and SVR4/GNU variants use different schemes for encoding file
names for members.
.Bl -tag -width "SVR4/GNU"
.It "BSD"
File names that are up to 16 bytes long and which do not contain
embedded spaces are stored directly in the
.Ar ar_name
field of the archive header.
File names that are either longer than 16 bytes or which contain
embedded spaces are stored immediately after the archive header
and the
.Ar ar_name
field of the archive header is set to the string
.Dq "#1/"
followed by a decimal representation of the number of bytes needed for
the file name.
In addition, the
.Ar ar_size
field of the archive header is set to the decimal representation of
the combined sizes of the archive member and the file name.
The file contents of the member follows the file name without further
padding.
.Pp
As an example, if the file name for a member was
.Dq "A B"
and its contents was the string
.Dq "C D" ,
then the
.Ar ar_name
field of the header would contain
.Dq Li "#1/3" ,
the
.Ar ar_size
field of the header would contain
.Dq Li 6 ,
and the bytes immediately following the header would be 0x41, 0x20,
0x42, 0x43, 0x20 and 0x44
.Po
ASCII
.Dq "A BC D"
.Pc .
.It "SVR4/GNU"
File names that are up to 15 characters long are stored directly in the
.Ar ar_name
field of the header, terminated by a
.Dq Li /
character.
.Pp
If the file name is larger than would fit in space for the
.Ar ar_name
field, then the actual file name is kept in the archive
string table
.Po
see
.Sx "Archive String Tables"
below
.Pc ,
and the decimal offset of the file name in the string table is stored
in the
.Ar ar_name
field, prefixed by a
.Dq Li /
character.
.Pp
As an example, if the real file name has been stored at offset 768 in
the archive string table, the
.Ar ar_name
field of the header will contain the string
.Dq /768 .
.El
.Ss "Special Archive Members"
The following archive members are special.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Dq Li /
In the SVR4/GNU variant of the archive format, the archive member with
name
.Dq Li /
denotes an archive symbol table.
If present, this member will be the very first member in the
archive.
.It Dq Li //
In the SVR4/GNU variant of the archive format, the archive member with
name
.Dq Li //
denotes the archive string table.
This special member is used to hold filenames that do not fit in the
file name field of the header
.Po
see
.Sx "Representing File Names"
above
.Pc .
If present, this member immediately follows the archive symbol table
if an archive symbol table is present, or is the first member otherwise.
.It Dq Li "__.SYMDEF"
This special member contains the archive symbol table in the BSD
variant of the archive format.
If present, this member will be the very first member in the
archive.
.El
.Ss "Archive String Tables"
An archive string table is used in the SVR4/GNU archive format to hold
file names that are too large to fit into the constraints of the
.Ar ar_name
field of the archive header.
An archive string table contains a sequence of file names.
Each file name in the archive string table is terminated by the
byte sequence 0x2F, 0x0A
.Po
the ASCII string
.Dq "/\en"
.Pc .
No padding is used to separate adjacent file names.
.Ss "Archive Symbol Tables"
Archive symbol tables are used to speed up link editing by providing a
mapping between the program symbols defined in the archive
and the corresponding archive members.
Archive symbol tables are managed by the
.Xr ranlib 1
utility.
.Pp
The format of archive symbol tables is as follows:
.Bl -tag -width "SVR4/GNU"
.It BSD
In the BSD archive format, the archive symbol table comprises
of two parts: a part containing an array of
.Vt "struct ranlib"
descriptors, followed by a part containing a symbol string table.
The sizes and layout of the structures that make up a BSD format
archive symbol table are machine dependent.
.Pp
The part containing
.Vt "struct ranlib"
descriptors begins with a field containing the size in bytes of the
array of
.Vt "struct ranlib"
descriptors encoded as a C
.Vt long
value.
.Pp
The array of
.Vt "struct ranlib"
descriptors follows the size field.
Each
.Vt "struct ranlib"
descriptor describes one symbol.
.Pp
A
.Vt "struct ranlib"
descriptor comprises two fields:
.Bl -tag -width "Ar ran_strx" -compact
.It Ar ran_strx
.Pq C Vt long
This field contains the zero-based offset of the symbol name in the
symbol string table.
.It Ar ran_off
.Pq C Vt long
This field is the file offset to the archive header for the archive
member defining the symbol.
.El
.Pp
The part containing the symbol string table begins with a field
containing the size in bytes of the string table, encoded as a C
.Vt long
value.
This string table follows the size field, and contains
NUL-terminated strings for the symbols in the symbol table.
.It SVR4/GNU
In the SVR4/GNU archive format, the archive symbol table starts with a
4-byte binary value containing the number of entries contained in the
archive symbol table.
This count of entries is stored most significant byte first.
.Pp
Next, there are
.Ar count
4-byte numbers, each stored most significant byte first.
Each number is a binary offset to the archive header for the member in
the archive file for the corresponding symbol table entry.
.Pp
After the binary offset values, there are
.Ar count
NUL-terminated strings in sequence, holding the symbol names for
the corresponding symbol table entries.
.El
.Sh STANDARDS COMPLIANCE
The
.Xr ar 1
archive format is not currently specified by a standard.
.Pp
This manual page documents the
.Xr ar 1
archive formats used by the
.Bx 4.4
and
.Ux SVR4
operating system releases.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ar 1 ,
.Xr ld 1 ,
.Xr ranlib 1 ,
.Xr elf 3 ,
.Xr elf_getarsym 3 ,
.Xr elf_rand 3