Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!gwyn From: gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: Does anyone use ar(1) anymore? Message-ID: <9848@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Wed, 10-Apr-85 08:46:21 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.9848 Posted: Wed Apr 10 08:46:21 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 12-Apr-85 06:14:31 EST References: <14@harvard.ARPA> Distribution: net Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 14 > Why doesn't anyone use ar anymore? Because there are at least 5 different "ar" archive formats in common use. As of UNIX System V Release 2 and 4.2BSD, the latest formats are more-or-less compatible (the main difference, apart from object library symbol tables, is that member names are /-terminated on SVR2 and space- terminated on 4.2BSD) and support portable completely text archives. If everyone had a common version of a recent "ar", it would be the most convenient way to package sources for distribution. Other alternatives include the ASCII-header version of "cpio", which not everyone has either. P.S. It would be nice if the 4.2BSD "ar" would support /-terminated member names in addition to space-terminated ones.