4 atool is a script for managing file archives of various types (tar,
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.
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.
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.)
25 atool is written in Perl by Oskar Liljeblad and is free software (GNU
26 General Public License).
31 atool is Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008,
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)
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
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.
48 The source code of this project may contain files from other projects, and
49 files generated by other projects, including:
51 * GNU Autoconf (http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/)
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
61 The following programs are required to run atool:
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).
68 site: http://www.perl.org/
72 The following programs are optional for running atool:
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
80 site: ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/
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
91 site: http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/tar.html
97 gzip is required if you want to use atool with gzip compressed archives.
99 site: http://www.gzip.org/
105 bzip is required if you want to use atool with bzip compressed archives.
106 Note that bzip is obsoleted by bzip2.
110 bzip2 is required if you want to use atool with bzip2 compressed
113 site: http://www.bzip.org/
119 lzop is required if you want to use atool with lzop compressed archives.
121 site: http://www.lzop.org/
127 LZMA is required if you want to use atool with lzma compressed archives.
129 site: http://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html
131 * zip/unzip (Info-ZIP Zip/Unzip)
133 Zip is required if you want to use atool with zip archives.
134 Implementations other than Info-ZIP's might work with atool as well.
136 site: http://www.info-zip.org
138 packages:zip, <c unzip
140 * rar (Eugene Roshal's RAR and UnRAR)
142 RAR is required if you want to use atool with rar archives.
143 Implementations other than Eugene Roshal's might work with atool as
146 site: http://www.rarsoft.com/
152 LHa is required if you want to use atool with lha, lharc and similar
155 site: http://www.infor.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/~ishii/lhaunix/
159 * unace (UnAce for Linux)
161 UnAce is required if you want to use atool with ace archives.
163 site: http://www.winace.com
169 Arj is required if you want to use atool with arj archives.
171 site: http://arj.sourceforge.net
175 * Red Hat Package Manager
177 The Red Hat Package Manager is required if you want to use atool with
180 site: http://www.rpm.org/
186 cpio is required if you want to use atool with cpio archives. Other
187 implmentations than GNU's might work as well.
189 site: http://www.gnu.org/software/cpio/
195 arc is required if you want to use atool with ARC archives (all commands
198 site: http://sources.isc.org/archiver/arc-5.21.txt
204 nomarch is required if you want to use atool to list and extract files
207 site: http://rus.members.beeb.net/nomarch.html
213 p7zip is required if you want to use atool with 7z archives.
215 site: http://p7zip.sourceforge.net/
221 unalz is required if you want to use atool with alzip archives.
223 site: http://www.kipple.pe.kr/win/unalz/
230 To build all files, simply run
234 The configure script accepts a few options - use the following command to
242 Installing atool is a matter of copying the atool file to some appropriate
243 directory for executable files, usually /usr/local/bin. After that,
244 symbolic links for apack, aunpack, als and acat to atool should be created
245 in the same directory.
247 All this can be done automaticly by running
251 It is possible to create a system wide configuration file overriding
252 default values found in the top of the atool script (see below).
254 Usage and Configuration
255 =======================
257 A list of options that atool accepts can be displayed by running atool with
262 Please see the manual page for atool for full use and configuration
263 information. This document can usually be viewed this way:
270 Please see the supplied manual page, as described above.
275 Web site and file area for atool is hosted on Savannah:
277 http://www.nongnu.org/atool/
279 The latest version of atool should always be available on this site.
284 The author of atool and this document, Oskar Liljeblad, can be reached by
287 oskar@osk.mine.nu (mailto:oskar@osk.mine.nu)
289 Please send bug reports, suggestions, ideas or comments in general to me -
290 I would like to hear from you if you like (or don't like) atool.
292 Known bugs and missing features
293 ===============================
295 Please see the KNOWN BUGS section of the atool.1 manual page.
300 Please see the TODO document.