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1 atool - Introduction
2 ====================
3
4 atool is a script for managing file archives of various types (tar,
5 tar+gzip, zip etc).
6
7 The main command is aunpack which extracts files from an archive. Did you
8 ever extract files from an archive, not checking whether the files were
9 located in a subdirectory or in the top directory of the archive, resulting
10 in files scattered all over the place? aunpack overcomes this problem by
11 first extracting to a new directory. If there was only a single file in the
12 archive, that file is moved to the original directory. aunpack also
13 prevents local files from being overwritten by mistake.
14
15 The other commands provided are apack (to create archives), als (to list
16 files in archives), and acat (to extract files to standard out). As atool
17 invokes external programs to handle the archives, not all commands may be
18 supported for a certain type of archives.
19
20 atool identifies archives by their file extension. Sometimes this is not
21 possible - for instance rar archives usually have varying numeric file
22 extensions. In those cases when atool can't identify the format, file is
23 used instead. (atool can be configured not to use file.)
24
25 atool is written in Perl by Oskar Liljeblad and is free software (GNU
26 General Public License).
27
28 Copyright and License
29 =====================
30
31 atool is Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008,
32 2009, 2011 Oskar Liljeblad
33
34 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
35 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
36 Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option)
37 any later version.
38
39 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
40 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
41 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for
42 more details.
43
44 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
45 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51
46 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
47
48 The source code of this project may contain files from other projects, and
49 files generated by other projects, including:
50
51 * GNU Autoconf (http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/)
52
53 Such files are licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License
54 or a license compatible with the GNU GPL (as listed on
55 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html). See each file for copyright
56 details.
57
58 Requirements
59 ============
60
61 The 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
72 The 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
253 Building
254 ========
255
256 To build all files, simply run
257
258 ./configure
259
260 The configure script accepts a few options - use the following command to
261 show them:
262
263 ./configure --help
264
265 Installation
266 ============
267
268 Installing atool is a matter of copying the atool file to some appropriate
269 directory for executable files, usually /usr/local/bin. After that,
270 symbolic links for apack, aunpack, als and acat to atool should be created
271 in the same directory.
272
273 All this can be done automaticly by running
274
275 make install
276
277 It is possible to create a system wide configuration file overriding
278 default values found in the top of the atool script (see below).
279
280 Usage and Configuration
281 =======================
282
283 A list of options that atool accepts can be displayed by running atool with
284 the --help option:
285
286 atool --help
287
288 Please see the manual page for atool for full use and configuration
289 information. This document can usually be viewed this way:
290
291 man ./atool.1
292
293 Supported formats
294 =================
295
296 Please see the supplied manual page, as described above.
297
298 Homepage
299 ========
300
301 Web site and file area for atool is hosted on Savannah:
302
303 http://www.nongnu.org/atool/
304
305 The latest version of atool should always be available on this site.
306
307 Feedback
308 ========
309
310 The author of atool and this document, Oskar Liljeblad, can be reached by
311 e-mail:
312
313 oskar@osk.mine.nu (mailto:oskar@osk.mine.nu)
314
315 Please send bug reports, suggestions, ideas or comments in general to me -
316 I would like to hear from you if you like (or don't like) atool.
317
318 Known bugs and missing features
319 ===============================
320
321 Please see the KNOWN BUGS section of the atool.1 manual page.
322
323 Things to do
324 ============
325
326 Please see the TODO document.
327
328 -