1.\" Copyright (c) 1990 Regents of the University of California. 2.\" All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)ranlib.1 6.4 (Berkeley) 07/24/90 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt RANLIB 1 10.BSD 4.4 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm ranlib 13.Nd preprocess archives for efficient linking 14.Sh SYNOPSIS 15.Nm ranlib 16.Op Fl t 17.Ar archive_file ... 18.Sh DESCRIPTION 19.Nm Ranlib 20is a preprocessor for the loading utility 21.Xr ld 1 . 22.Nm Ranlib 23creates a randomized library from the given 24.Ar archive_file 25with 26the file entry named 27.Sy \&__.SYMDEF 28prepended. 29The 30.Sy \&__.SYMDEF 31file entry is a dictionary the loader can detect and interpret 32to resolve external references at link time. 33To generate the library, the 34.Xr ar 1 35utility is used. 36.Tw 8n 37.Tp Fl t 38Ranlib only "touches" the archives and does not modify them. 39This is useful after copying an archive 40or using the 41.Fl t 42option of 43.Xr make 1 44in order to avoid having 45.Xr ld 1 46complain about 47an 48.Dq out of date 49symbol table. 50.Tp 51.Sh SEE ALSO 52.Xr ar 1 , 53.Xr ld 1 , 54.Xr lorder 1 , 55.Xr make 1 , 56.Xr nm 1 57.Sh HISTORY 58.Nm Ranlib 59appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX. 60.Sh BUGS 61The archiving is a separate process and phase 62errors may occur (see the 63.Fl t 64option above). 65