I have compressed couple of files and folders (mostly photos) using 'Archive Manager' on Ubuntu 14.04. During compression I've selected file type as AR from the drop-down selector.
Now when I'm trying to decompress that *.AR file using 'Archive Manager', it decompresses only the files were on the root folder. But, the AR file size is showing the exact as it was during the compression.
Could anyone please help me to decompress the AR file properly?
Thanks.
You are looking for the ar command. It is installed on any Ubuntu version.
The archiver, also known simply as ar, is a Unix utility that maintains groups of files as a single archive file. Today, ar is generally used only to create and update static library files that the link editor or linker uses; it can be used to create archives for any purpose, but has been largely replaced by tar for purposes other than static libraries. An implementation of ar is included as one of the GNU Binutils.
In the Linux Standard Base, ar has been deprecated and is expected to disappear in a future release of that Standard. The rationale provided was that "the LSB does not include software development utilities nor does it specify .o and .a file formats."
To list contents:
ar -t
-t option of the gnu archiver (ar) writes a table of contents of archive to the standard output. Only the files specified by the file operands shall be included in the written list. If no file operands are specified, all files in archive shall be included in the order of the archive.
And all of the options from the "usage" when you just type "ar":
~$ ar
Usage: ar [emulation options] [-]{dmpqrstx}[abcDfilMNoPsSTuvV] [--plugin <name>] [member-name] [count] archive-file file...
ar -M [<mri-script]
commands:
d - delete file(s) from the archive
m[ab] - move file(s) in the archive
p - print file(s) found in the archive
q[f] - quick append file(s) to the archive
r[ab][f][u] - replace existing or insert new file(s) into the archive
s - act as ranlib
t - display contents of archive
x[o] - extract file(s) from the archive
command specific modifiers:
[a] - put file(s) after [member-name]
[b] - put file(s) before [member-name] (same as [i])
[D] - use zero for timestamps and uids/gids
[U] - use actual timestamps and uids/gids (default)
[N] - use instance [count] of name
[f] - truncate inserted file names
[P] - use full path names when matching
[o] - preserve original dates
[u] - only replace files that are newer than current archive contents
generic modifiers:
[c] - do not warn if the library had to be created
[s] - create an archive index (cf. ranlib)
[S] - do not build a symbol table
[T] - make a thin archive
[v] - be verbose
[V] - display the version number
@<file> - read options from <file>
--target=BFDNAME - specify the target object format as BFDNAME
optional:
--plugin <p> - load the specified plugin
emulation options:
No emulation specific options
ar: supported targets: elf64-x86-64 elf32-i386 elf32-x86-64 a.out-i386-linux pei-i386 pei-x86-64 elf64-l1om elf64-k1om elf64-little elf64-big elf32-little elf32-big pe-x86-64 pe-bigobj-x86-64 pe-i386 plugin srec symbolsrec verilog tekhex binary ihex
