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From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: HPUX 5.2 archiver
Message-ID: <30139@sun.uucp>
Date: Tue, 6-Oct-87 14:17:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.30139
Posted: Tue Oct  6 14:17:05 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Oct-87 06:44:24 EDT
References: <8710052355.AA03056@lbl-helios>
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> I spent an inordinate amount of time today trying to read on a Sun the
> contents of an "ar" archive written on an HP9000.  The problem was that
> ar on the HP generates non-standard archive headers.

Actually, they *are* standard System V Release 2 or later archive headers.

> This extra '/' is the one character they could have chosen which your
> typical ar can't chew on.

I presume "/" was chosen because it is the one character that is not valid in a
file name (it's valid in a *path*name, but not in a file name; it separates the
file names in a pathname).

> 	1.  Is there an easier way to read the archive?  (Hand-editing
> 	    resulted in "malformed archive" errors.)

Not that I know of, short of porting an S5R2 or later "ar".

> 	2.  Is there a rational explanation for the incompatibility?

I presume the intent was to permit file names with trailing blanks in archives.
Whether this was worth the incompatibility in an otherwise completely
4BSD-compatible archive format is left as an exercise for the readers.
	Guy Harris
	{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
	guy@sun.com