Manual page for PAX(1V)
pax - portable archive exchange
SYNOPSIS
/usr/5bin/pax
[
-cimopuvy
]
[
-f archive
[
-s replstr
]
[
-t device
]
[
pattern...
]
/usr/5bin/pax
-r
[
-cimnopuvy
]
[
-f archive
]
[
-s replstr
]
[
-t device
]
[
pattern...
]
/usr/5bin/pax
-w
[
-adimuvy
]
[
-b blocking
]
[
-f archive
]
[
-s replstr
]
[
-t device
]
[
-x format
]
[
pathname...
]
/usr/5bin/pax
-rw
[
-ilmopuvy
]
[
-s replstr
]
[
pathname...
]
directory
AVAILABILITY
pax
is available with the
System V
software installation option.
Refer to
[a manual with the abbreviation INSTALL]
for information on how to install optional software.
DESCRIPTION
pax
reads and writes archive files which conform to the
Archive/Interchange File Format
specified in
IEEE Std. 1003.1-1988
(POSIX.1).
pax
can also read, but not write, a number of other file formats
in addition to those specified in the
Archive/Interchange File Format
description.
Support for these traditional file formats, such as V7
tar.1
and System V binary
cpio.1
format archives,
is provided for backward compatibility and to maximize portability.
pax
will also support traditional
cpio
and System V
tar
interfaces if invoked with the name
cpio
or
tar
respectively.
See the
paxcpio.1v
or
ustar.1v
manual pages for more details.
directory
specifies the destination directory pathname for copies when both the
-r
and
-w
options are specified.
The directory must exist and be writable before the copy or and error
results.
pathname
is a file whose contents are used instead of the files
named on the standard input.
When a directory is named, all of its files and (recursively)
subdirectories are copied as well.
A
pattern
is given in the standard shell pattern matching notation.
The default if no
pattern
is specified is
`*',
which selects all files.
Combinations of the
-r
and
-w
command line arguments specify whether
pax
will read, write or list the contents of the specified archive,
or move the specified files to another directory.
If neither the
-r
or
-w
options are given,
pax
will list the contents of the specified archive.
In this mode,
pax
lists normal files one per line, hard link pathnames as
-
pathname == linkname
and symbolic link pathnames (if supported by the implementation) as
-
pathname -> linkname
where
pathname
is the name of the file being extracted, and
linkname
is the name of a file which appeared earlier in the archive.
If the
-v
option is specified, then
pax
list normal pathnames in the same format used by
ls.1v
with the
-l
option.
Hard links are shown as
-
<ls -l listing> == linkname
and symbolic links (if supported) are shown as
-
<ls -l listing> -> linkname
pax
is capable of reading and writing archives which
span multiple physical volumes.
Upon detecting an end of medium on an archive which
is not yet completed,
pax
will prompt the user for the next volume of the archive
and will allow the user to specify the location of the next volume.
When writing to an archive, the
standard input is used as a list of pathnames if no
pathname
operands are specified.
The format is one pathname per line.
Otherwise, the standard input is the archive file,
which is formatted according to one of the specifications in
Archive/Interchange File format
in
POSIX.1,
or some other implementation-defined format.
The user
ID
and group
ID
of the process, together with the appropriate
privileges, affect the ability of
pax
to restore ownership and permissions attributes of the archived files.
See
format-reading utility
in
Archive/Interchange File Format
in
POSIX.1.
OPTIONS
- -w
-
Write the files and directories specified by
pathname
to the standard output together with the pathname and status
information prescribed by the archive format used.
pathname
refers to the files and (recursively) subdirectories of that
directory.
If
pathname
is not specified, then the standard input is read to get a
list of pathnames to copy, one pathname per line.
In this case, only those pathnames appearing on the standard input are
copied.
- -r
-
Read an archive file from the standard input.
Only files with names that match
pattern
are selected for extraction.
The selected files are conditionally created and copied relative to the
current directory tree, subject to the options described below.
By default, the owner and group of selected files will be that of the
invoking process, and the permissions and modification times will be the
sames as those in the archive.
The supported archive formats are automatically detected on input.
The default output format is
ustar,
but may be overridden by the
-x format
option described below.
- -rw
-
Read the files and directories named in
pathname
and copy them to the destination
directory.
A directory
pathname
refers to the files and (recursively) subdirectories of that
directory.
If
pathname
is not specified, the standard input is read to
get a list of pathnames to copy, one pathname per line.
In this case, only those pathnames appearing on the standard input are
copied.
The directory named by
directory
must exist and have the proper permissions before the copy can
occur.
- -a
-
Append the files specified by
pathname
to the specified archive.
- -c
-
Complement the match sense of
pattern.
- -d
-
Intermediate directories not explicitly listed in the archive are not
created.
This option is ignored unless
the
-r
option is specified.
- -i
-
Interactively rename files.
Substitutions specified by the
-s
option (described below)
are performed before requesting the new file name from the user.
A file is skipped if an empty line is entered and
pax
exits with an exit status of 0 if an
EOF
is encountered.
- -l
-
Link files rather than copy when possible.
- -m
-
File modification times are not retained.
- -n
-
When
-r
is specified, but
-w
is not, the
pattern
arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
Only the first occurrence of each of these files in the input archive
is read.
The
pax
utility exits with a zero exit status after all files in the list have been
read.
If one or more files in the list is not found,
pax
writes a diagnostic to standard error for each of the files and exits with
a non-zero exit status.
The file names are compared before any of the
-i,
-s,
or
-y
options are applied.
- -o
-
Restore file ownership as specified in the archive.
The invoking process must have appropriate privileges
to accomplish this.
- -p
-
Preserve the access time of the input files after they have been copied.
- -u
-
Copy each file only if it is newer than a pre-existing
file with the same name.
This implies the
-a
option.
- -v
-
List file names as they are encountered.
Produces a verbose table of contents listing
on the standard output when both the
-r
and
-w
options are omitted,
otherwise the file names are printed to standard error as they are
encountered in the archive.
- -y
-
Interactively prompt for the disposition of each file.
Substitutions specified by
-s
options (described above)
are performed before prompting the user for disposition.
pax
exits after receiving an
EOF
or an input line starting with the character
q.
Files are ignored if an input line starting with anything other than
y
is specified.
This option cannot be used in conjunction with the
-i
option.
- -b blocking
-
Block the output at
blocking
bytes per write to the archive file.
A
k
suffix multiplies
blocking
by 1024, a
b
suffix multiplies
blocking
by 512 and a
m
suffix multiplies
blocking
by 1048576 (1 megabyte).
If not specified,
blocking
is automatically determined on input and is ignored if
the
-rw
option is specified.
- -f archive
-
Specify the pathname of the input or output archive,
overriding the default of the standard input for the
-r
option or the standard output for the
-w
option.
- -s replstr
-
File names are modified according to the substitution
expression using the syntax of
ed.1
as shown:
-
-
-s /old/new/[gp]
Any non-null
character may be used as a delimiter (a
`/'
is used here as an example).
Multiple
-s
expressions may be specified;
the expressions are applied in the order specified,
terminating with the first successful substitution.
The optional trailing
g
replaces the
old
expression each time it occurs in the source string.
The optional trailing
p
lists successful mappings on the standard error.
Files that substitute to an empty string are ignored both on input and
output.
- -t device
-
The
device
option argument is an implementation-defined identifier that names the input
or output archive device, overriding the default of the standard input for
-r
and the standard output for
-w.
- -x format
-
Specifies the output archive
format.
The input format, which must be one of the following, is automatically
determined when the
-r
option is used.
The supported formats are:
-
- cpio
-
The extended
CPIO
interchange format specified in
Extended CPIO Format in
POSIX.1.
- tar
-
The extended
TAR
interchange format specified in
Extended TAR Format in
POSIX.1.
This is the default archive format.
Only the last of multiple
-f
or
-t
options take effect.
The options
-a,
-c,
-d,
-i,
-l,
-p,
-t,
-u,
and
-y
are provided for functional compatibility with the historical
cpio
and
tar
utilities.
The option defaults were chosen based on the most common usage of these
options, therefore, some of the options have meanings different than
those of the historical commands.
EXAMPLES
The following command:
-
pax -w -f /dev/rmt0 .
copies the contents of the current directory to tape drive 0.
The commands:
-
mkdir newdir
cd olddir
pax -rw . newdir
copies the contents of
olddir
to
newdir.
The command:
-
pax -r -s ',//*usr//*,,' -f pax.out
reads the archive
pax.out
with all files rooted in
/usr
in the archive extracted
relative to the current directory.
FILES
- /dev/tty
-
used to prompt the user for information when the
-i
or
-y
options are specified
SEE ALSO
cpio.1
ed.1
find.1
ls.1v
paxcpio.1v
tar.1
ustar.1v
cpio.5
tar.5
IEEE Std. 1003.1-1988
DIAGNOSTICS
pax
will terminate immediately, without processing any
additional files on the command line or in the archive.
EXIT CODES
pax
exits with one of the following values:
- 0
-
All files in the archive were processed successfully.
- >0
-
pax
aborted due to errors encountered during operation.
BUGS
Special permissions may be required to copy or extract special files.
For device, user
ID,
and group
ID
numbers larger than 65535 additional
header records are output.
These records are ignored by some historical version of
cpio.1
and
tar.1
The archive formats described in
Archive/Interchange File Format
have certain restrictions that have
been carried over from historical usage.
For example, there are restrictions on the
length of pathnames stored in the archive.
When getting an
`ls -l'
style listing on
tar
format archives, link counts are listed as zero since the
ustar
archive format does not keep link count information.
AUTHOR
Mark H. Colburn
NAPS International
117 Mackubin Street, Suite 1
St. Paul, MN 55102
Sponsored by
The USENIX Association
for public distribution.
Created by unroff & hp-tools.
© somebody (See intro for details). All Rights Reserved.
Last modified 11/5/97