1atool - Introduction 2==================== 3 4atool is a script for managing file archives of various types (tar, 5tar+gzip, zip etc). 6 7The main command is aunpack which extracts files from an archive. Did you 8ever extract files from an archive, not checking whether the files were 9located in a subdirectory or in the top directory of the archive, resulting 10in files scattered all over the place? aunpack overcomes this problem by 11first extracting to a new directory. If there was only a single file in the 12archive, that file is moved to the original directory. aunpack also 13prevents local files from being overwritten by mistake. 14 15The other commands provided are apack (to create archives), als (to list 16files in archives), and acat (to extract files to standard out). As atool 17invokes external programs to handle the archives, not all commands may be 18supported for a certain type of archives. 19 20atool identifies archives by their file extension. Sometimes this is not 21possible - for instance rar archives usually have varying numeric file 22extensions. In those cases when atool can't identify the format, file is 23used instead. (atool can be configured not to use file.) 24 25atool is written in Perl by Oskar Liljeblad and is free software (GNU 26General Public License). 27 28Copyright and License 29===================== 30 31atool is Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 322009, 2011 Oskar Liljeblad 33 34This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it 35under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free 36Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) 37any later version. 38 39This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT 40ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or 41FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for 42more details. 43 44You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along 45with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 46Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA. 47 48The source code of this project may contain files from other projects, and 49files generated by other projects, including: 50 51 * GNU Autoconf (http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/) 52 53Such files are licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License 54or a license compatible with the GNU GPL (as listed on 55http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html). See each file for copyright 56details. 57 58Requirements 59============ 60 61The following programs are required to run atool: 62 63 * Perl 5.004 or later 64 65 atool is written in Perl. The modules File::Spec, File::Basename, 66 Getopt::Long and POSIX must be available (they probably are by default). 67 68 Web site: http://www.perl.org/ 69 70 Debian package: perl 71 72The following programs are optional for running atool: 73 74 * file 75 76 file is used to determine file types, and is found in most unices by 77 default. This program is necessary unless you choose to disable the 78 use_file option. 79 80 Web site: ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/ 81 82 Debian package: file 83 84 * tar (GNU tar) 85 86 tar is required if you want to use atool with tar archives. 87 Implementations other than GNU's will work with atool as well, but see 88 the Installation section below if you don't use GNU tar 1.13.18 or 89 later. 90 91 Web site: http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/tar.html 92 93 Debian package: tar 94 95 * gzip (GNU zip) 96 97 gzip is required if you want to use atool with gzip compressed archives. 98 99 Web site: http://www.gzip.org/ 100 101 Debian package: gzip 102 103 * bzip 104 105 bzip is required if you want to use atool with bzip compressed archives. 106 Note that bzip is obsoleted by bzip2. 107 108 * bzip2 109 110 bzip2 is required if you want to use atool with bzip2 compressed 111 archives. 112 113 Web site: http://www.bzip.org/ 114 115 Debian package: bzip2 116 117 * pbzip2 118 119 pbzip2 is required if you want to use atool with bzip2 compressed 120 archives and utilize parallel processing. 121 122 Web site: http://compression.ca/pbzip2/ 123 124 Debian package: pbzip2 125 126 * lzip 127 128 lzip is required if you want to use atool with lzip compressed archives. 129 130 Web site: http://lzip.nongnu.org/lzip.html 131 132 Debian package: lzip 133 134 * plzip 135 136 plzip is required if you want to use atool with lzip compressed archives 137 and utilize parallel processing. 138 139 Web site: http://lzip.nongnu.org/plzip.html 140 141 Debian package (not in stable as of 2012-02-07): plzip 142 143 * lzop 144 145 lzop is required if you want to use atool with lzop compressed archives. 146 147 Web site: http://www.lzop.org/ 148 149 Debian package: lzop 150 151 * LZMA 152 153 LZMA is required if you want to use atool with lzma compressed archives. 154 155 Web site: http://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html 156 157 * zip/unzip (Info-ZIP Zip/Unzip) 158 159 Zip is required if you want to use atool with zip archives. 160 Implementations other than Info-ZIP's might work with atool as well. 161 162 Web site: http://www.info-zip.org 163 164 Debian packages: zip, unzip 165 166 * rar (Eugene Roshal's RAR and UnRAR) 167 168 RAR is required if you want to use atool with rar archives. 169 Implementations other than Eugene Roshal's might work with atool as 170 well. 171 172 Web site: http://www.rarsoft.com/ 173 174 Debian packages: rar, unrar 175 176 * lha (LHa for UNIX) 177 178 LHa is required if you want to use atool with lha, lharc and similar 179 archives. 180 181 Web site: http://www.infor.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/~ishii/lhaunix/ 182 183 Debian package: lha 184 185 * unace (UnAce for Linux) 186 187 UnAce is required if you want to use atool with ace archives. 188 189 Web site: http://www.winace.com 190 191 Debian package: unace 192 193 * arj 194 195 Arj is required if you want to use atool with arj archives. 196 197 Web site: http://arj.sourceforge.net 198 199 Debian package: arj 200 201 * Red Hat Package Manager 202 203 The Red Hat Package Manager is required if you want to use atool with 204 rpm archives. 205 206 Web site: http://www.rpm.org/ 207 208 Debian package: rpm 209 210 * cpio (GNU cpio) 211 212 cpio is required if you want to use atool with cpio archives. Other 213 implmentations than GNU's might work as well. 214 215 Web site: http://www.gnu.org/software/cpio/ 216 217 Debian package: cpio 218 219 * arc 220 221 arc is required if you want to use atool with ARC archives (all commands 222 supported). 223 224 Web site: http://sources.isc.org/archiver/arc-5.21.txt 225 226 Debian package: arc 227 228 * nomarch 229 230 nomarch is required if you want to use atool to list and extract files 231 from ARC archives. 232 233 Web site: http://rus.members.beeb.net/nomarch.html 234 235 Debian package: nomarch 236 237 * p7zip 238 239 p7zip is required if you want to use atool with 7z archives. 240 241 Web site: http://p7zip.sourceforge.net/ 242 243 Debian package: p7zip 244 245 * unalz 246 247 unalz is required if you want to use atool with alzip archives. 248 249 Web site: http://www.kipple.pe.kr/win/unalz/ 250 251 Debian package: unalz 252 253Building 254======== 255 256To build all files, simply run 257 258 ./configure 259 260The configure script accepts a few options - use the following command to 261show them: 262 263 ./configure --help 264 265Installation 266============ 267 268Installing atool is a matter of copying the atool file to some appropriate 269directory for executable files, usually /usr/local/bin. After that, 270symbolic links for apack, aunpack, als and acat to atool should be created 271in the same directory. 272 273All this can be done automaticly by running 274 275 make install 276 277It is possible to create a system wide configuration file overriding 278default values found in the top of the atool script (see below). 279 280Usage and Configuration 281======================= 282 283A list of options that atool accepts can be displayed by running atool with 284the --help option: 285 286 atool --help 287 288Please see the manual page for atool for full use and configuration 289information. This document can usually be viewed this way: 290 291 man ./atool.1 292 293Supported formats 294================= 295 296Please see the supplied manual page, as described above. 297 298Homepage 299======== 300 301Web site and file area for atool is hosted on Savannah: 302 303 http://www.nongnu.org/atool/ 304 305The latest version of atool should always be available on this site. 306 307Feedback 308======== 309 310The author of atool and this document, Oskar Liljeblad, can be reached by 311e-mail: 312 313 oskar@osk.mine.nu (mailto:oskar@osk.mine.nu) 314 315Please send bug reports, suggestions, ideas or comments in general to me - 316I would like to hear from you if you like (or don't like) atool. 317 318Known bugs and missing features 319=============================== 320 321Please see the KNOWN BUGS section of the atool.1 manual page. 322 323Things to do 324============ 325 326Please see the TODO document. 327 328- 329