ar - create, modify, and extract from archives
ar [-X32_64] [-]p[mod] [--plugin name]
  [--target bfdname] [relpos] [count] archive
  [member...]
The GNU ar program creates, modifies, and extracts from archives. An
  archive is a single file holding a collection of other files in a
  structure that makes it possible to retrieve the original individual files
  (called members of the archive).
The original files' contents, mode (permissions), timestamp,
    owner, and group are preserved in the archive, and can be restored on
    extraction.
GNU ar can maintain archives whose members have names of
    any length; however, depending on how ar is configured on your
    system, a limit on member-name length may be imposed for compatibility with
    archive formats maintained with other tools. If it exists, the limit is
    often 15 characters (typical of formats related to a.out) or 16 characters
    (typical of formats related to coff).
ar is considered a binary utility because archives of this
    sort are most often used as libraries holding commonly needed
    subroutines.
ar creates an index to the symbols defined in relocatable
    object modules in the archive when you specify the modifier s. Once
    created, this index is updated in the archive whenever ar makes a
    change to its contents (save for the q update operation). An archive
    with such an index speeds up linking to the library, and allows routines in
    the library to call each other without regard to their placement in the
    archive.
You may use nm -s or nm --print-armap to list this
    index table. If an archive lacks the table, another form of ar called
    ranlib can be used to add just the table.
GNU ar can optionally create a thin archive, which
    contains a symbol index and references to the original copies of the member
    files of the archive. This is useful for building libraries for use within a
    local build tree, where the relocatable objects are expected to remain
    available, and copying the contents of each object would only waste time and
    space.
An archive can either be thin or it can be normal. It
    cannot be both at the same time. Once an archive is created its format
    cannot be changed without first deleting it and then creating a new archive
    in its place.
Thin archives are also flattened, so that adding one thin
    archive to another thin archive does not nest it, as would happen with a
    normal archive. Instead the elements of the first archive are added
    individually to the second archive.
The paths to the elements of the archive are stored relative to
    the archive itself.
GNU ar is designed to be compatible with two different
    facilities. You can control its activity using command-line options, like
    the different varieties of ar on Unix systems; or, if you specify the
    single command-line option -M, you can control it with a script
    supplied via standard input, like the MRI "librarian" program.
GNU ar allows you to mix the operation code p and modifier flags
  mod in any order, within the first command-line argument.
If you wish, you may begin the first command-line argument with a
    dash.
The p keyletter specifies what operation to execute; it may
    be any of the following, but you must specify only one of them:
  - d
- Delete modules from the archive. Specify the names of modules to be
      deleted as member...; the archive is untouched if you specify no
      files to delete.
    If you specify the v modifier, ar lists each
        module as it is deleted. 
- m
- Use this operation to move members in an archive.
    The ordering of members in an archive can make a difference in
        how programs are linked using the library, if a symbol is defined in
        more than one member. If no modifiers are used with
        "m", any members you name in the
        member arguments are moved to the end of the archive; you
        can use the a, b, or i modifiers to move them to a
        specified place instead. 
- p
- Print the specified members of the archive, to the standard output
      file. If the v modifier is specified, show the member name before
      copying its contents to standard output.
    If you specify no member arguments, all the files in
        the archive are printed. 
- q
- Quick append; Historically, add the files member... to the
      end of archive, without checking for replacement.
    The modifiers a, b, and i do not
        affect this operation; new members are always placed at the end of the
        archive. The modifier v makes ar list each file as it is
        appended. Since the point of this operation is speed, implementations of
        ar have the option of not updating the archive's symbol table if
        one exists. Too many different systems however assume that symbol tables
        are always up-to-date, so GNU ar will rebuild the table even with
        a quick append. Note - GNU ar treats the command qs as a synonym
        for r - replacing already existing files in the archive and
        appending new ones at the end. 
- r
- Insert the files member... into archive (with
      replacement). This operation differs from q in that any
      previously existing members are deleted if their names match those being
      added.
    If one of the files named in member... does not exist,
        ar displays an error message, and leaves undisturbed any existing
        members of the archive matching that name. By default, new members are added at the end of the file; but
        you may use one of the modifiers a, b, or i to
        request placement relative to some existing member. The modifier v used with this operation elicits a line
        of output for each file inserted, along with one of the letters a
        or r to indicate whether the file was appended (no old member
        deleted) or replaced. 
- s
- Add an index to the archive, or update it if it already exists. Note this
      command is an exception to the rule that there can only be one command
      letter, as it is possible to use it as either a command or a modifier. In
      either case it does the same thing.
- t
- Display a table listing the contents of archive, or those of
      the files listed in member... that are present in the archive.
      Normally only the member name is shown, but if the modifier O is
      specified, then the corresponding offset of the member is also displayed.
      Finally, in order to see the modes (permissions), timestamp, owner, group,
      and size the v modifier should be included.
    If you do not specify a member, all files in the
        archive are listed. If there is more than one file with the same name (say,
        fie) in an archive (say b.a), ar t b.a fie lists
        only the first instance; to see them all, you must ask for a complete
        listing---in our example, ar t b.a. 
- x
- Extract members (named member) from the archive. You can use
      the v modifier with this operation, to request that ar list
      each name as it extracts it.
    If you do not specify a member, all files in the
        archive are extracted. Files cannot be extracted from a thin archive. 
A number of modifiers (mod) may immediately follow the
    p keyletter, to specify variations on an operation's behavior:
  - a
- Add new files after an existing member of the archive. If you use
      the modifier a, the name of an existing archive member must be
      present as the relpos argument, before the archive
      specification.
- b
- Add new files before an existing member of the archive. If you use
      the modifier b, the name of an existing archive member must be
      present as the relpos argument, before the archive
      specification. (same as i).
- c
- Create the archive. The specified archive is always created
      if it did not exist, when you request an update. But a warning is issued
      unless you specify in advance that you expect to create it, by using this
      modifier.
- D
- Operate in deterministic mode. When adding files and the archive
      index use zero for UIDs, GIDs, timestamps, and use consistent file modes
      for all files. When this option is used, if ar is used with
      identical options and identical input files, multiple runs will create
      identical output files regardless of the input files' owners, groups, file
      modes, or modification times.
    If binutils was configured with
        --enable-deterministic-archives, then this mode is on by default.
        It can be disabled with the U modifier, below. 
- f
- Truncate names in the archive. GNU ar will normally permit file
      names of any length. This will cause it to create archives which are not
      compatible with the native ar program on some systems. If this is a
      concern, the f modifier may be used to truncate file names when
      putting them in the archive.
- i
- Insert new files before an existing member of the archive. If you
      use the modifier i, the name of an existing archive member must be
      present as the relpos argument, before the archive
      specification. (same as b).
- l
- This modifier is accepted but not used.
- N
- Uses the count parameter. This is used if there are multiple
      entries in the archive with the same name. Extract or delete instance
      count of the given name from the archive.
- o
- Preserve the original dates of members when extracting them. If you
      do not specify this modifier, files extracted from the archive are stamped
      with the time of extraction.
- O
- Display member offsets inside the archive. Use together with the t
      option.
- P
- Use the full path name when matching names in the archive. GNU ar
      can not create an archive with a full path name (such archives are not
      POSIX complaint), but other archive creators can. This option will cause
      GNU ar to match file names using a complete path name, which can be
      convenient when extracting a single file from an archive created by
      another tool.
- s
- Write an object-file index into the archive, or update an existing one,
      even if no other change is made to the archive. You may use this modifier
      flag either with any operation, or alone. Running ar s on an
      archive is equivalent to running ranlib on it.
- S
- Do not generate an archive symbol table. This can speed up building a
      large library in several steps. The resulting archive can not be used with
      the linker. In order to build a symbol table, you must omit the S
      modifier on the last execution of ar, or you must run ranlib
      on the archive.
- T
- Make the specified archive a thin archive. If it already
      exists and is a regular archive, the existing members must be present in
      the same directory as archive.
- u
- Normally, ar r... inserts all files listed into the archive. If you
      would like to insert only those of the files you list that are
      newer than existing members of the same names, use this modifier. The
      u modifier is allowed only for the operation r (replace). In
      particular, the combination qu is not allowed, since checking the
      timestamps would lose any speed advantage from the operation
    q.
- U
- Do not operate in deterministic mode. This is the inverse of
      the D modifier, above: added files and the archive index will get
      their actual UID, GID, timestamp, and file mode values.
    This is the default unless binutils was configured with
        --enable-deterministic-archives. 
- v
- This modifier requests the verbose version of an operation. Many
      operations display additional information, such as filenames processed,
      when the modifier v is appended.
- V
- This modifier shows the version number of ar.
The ar program also supports some command line options
    which are neither modifiers nor actions, but which do change its behaviour
    in specific ways:
  - --help
- Displays the list of command line options supported by ar and then
      exits.
- --version
- Displays the version information of ar and then exits.
- -X32_64
- ar ignores an initial option spelt -X32_64, for
      compatibility with AIX. The behaviour produced by this option is the
      default for GNU ar. ar does not support any of the other
      -X options; in particular, it does not support -X32 which is
      the default for AIX ar.
- --plugin name
- The optional command line switch --plugin name causes
      ar to load the plugin called name which adds support for
      more file formats, including object files with link-time optimization
      information.
    This option is only available if the toolchain has been built
        with plugin support enabled. If --plugin is not provided, but plugin support has
        been enabled then ar iterates over the files in
        ${libdir}/bfd-plugins in alphabetic order and the first plugin
        that claims the object in question is used. Please note that this plugin search directory is not
        the one used by ld's -plugin option. In order to make
        ar use the linker plugin it must be copied into the
        ${libdir}/bfd-plugins directory. For GCC based compilations the
        linker plugin is called liblto_plugin.so.0.0.0. For Clang based
        compilations it is called LLVMgold.so. The GCC plugin is always
        backwards compatible with earlier versions, so it is sufficient to just
        copy the newest one. 
- --target target
- The optional command line switch --target bfdname specifies
      that the archive members are in an object code format different from your
      system's default format. See
- @file
- Read command-line options from file. The options read are inserted
      in place of the original @file option. If file does not
      exist, or cannot be read, then the option will be treated literally, and
      not removed.
    Options in file are separated by whitespace. A
        whitespace character may be included in an option by surrounding the
        entire option in either single or double quotes. Any character
        (including a backslash) may be included by prefixing the character to be
        included with a backslash. The file may itself contain additional
        @file options; any such options will be processed
      recursively. 
nm(1), ranlib(1), and the Info entries for binutils.
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    A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free
    Documentation License".