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 Oskar Liljeblad
33 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
34 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
35 Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option)
38 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
39 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
40 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for
43 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
44 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51
45 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
47 The source code of this project may contain files from other projects, and
48 files generated by other projects, including:
50 * GNU Autoconf (http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/)
52 Such files are licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License
53 or a license compatible with the GNU GPL (as listed on
54 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html). See each file for copyright
60 The following programs are required to run atool:
64 atool is written in Perl. The modules File::Spec, File::Basename,
65 Getopt::Long and POSIX must be available (they probably are by default).
67 site: http://www.perl.org/
71 The following programs are optional for running atool:
75 file is used to determine file types, and is found in most unices by
76 default. This program is necessary unless you choose to disable the
79 site: ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/
85 tar is required if you want to use atool with tar archives.
86 Implementations other than GNU's will work with atool as well, but see
87 the Installation section below if you don't use GNU tar 1.13.18 or
90 site: http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/tar.html
96 gzip is required if you want to use atool with gzip compressed archives.
98 site: http://www.gzip.org/
104 bzip is required if you want to use atool with bzip compressed archives.
105 Note that bzip is obsoleted by bzip2.
109 bzip2 is required if you want to use atool with bzip2 compressed
112 site: http://www.bzip.org/
118 lzop is required if you want to use atool with lzop compressed archives.
120 site: http://www.lzop.org/
126 LZMA is required if you want to use atool with lzma compressed archives.
128 site: http://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html
130 * zip/unzip (Info-ZIP Zip/Unzip)
132 Zip is required if you want to use atool with zip archives.
133 Implementations other than Info-ZIP's might work with atool as well.
135 site: http://www.info-zip.org
137 packages:zip, <c unzip
139 * rar (Eugene Roshal's RAR and UnRAR)
141 RAR is required if you want to use atool with rar archives.
142 Implementations other than Eugene Roshal's might work with atool as
145 site: http://www.rarsoft.com/
151 LHa is required if you want to use atool with lha, lharc and similar
154 site: http://www.infor.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/~ishii/lhaunix/
158 * unace (UnAce for Linux)
160 UnAce is required if you want to use atool with ace archives.
162 site: http://www.winace.com
168 Arj is required if you want to use atool with arj archives.
170 site: http://arj.sourceforge.net
174 * Red Hat Package Manager
176 The Red Hat Package Manager is required if you want to use atool with
179 site: http://www.rpm.org/
185 cpio is required if you want to use atool with cpio archives. Other
186 implmentations than GNU's might work as well.
188 site: http://www.gnu.org/software/cpio/
194 arc is required if you want to use atool with ARC archives (all commands
197 site: http://sources.isc.org/archiver/arc-5.21.txt
203 nomarch is required if you want to use atool to list and extract files
206 site: http://rus.members.beeb.net/nomarch.html
212 p7zip is required if you want to use atool with 7z archives.
214 site: http://p7zip.sourceforge.net/
220 unalz is required if you want to use atool with alzip archives.
222 site: http://www.kipple.pe.kr/win/unalz/
229 To build all files, simply run
233 The configure script accepts a few options - use the following command to
241 Installing atool is a matter of copying the atool file to some appropriate
242 directory for executable files, usually /usr/local/bin. After that,
243 symbolic links for apack, aunpack, als and acat to atool should be created
244 in the same directory.
246 All this can be done automaticly by running
250 It is possible to create a system wide configuration file overriding
251 default values found in the top of the atool script (see below).
253 Usage and Configuration
254 =======================
256 A list of options that atool accepts can be displayed by running atool with
261 Please see the manual page for atool for full use and configuration
262 information. This document can usually be viewed this way:
269 Please see the supplied manual page, as described above.
274 Web site and file area for atool is hosted on Savannah:
276 http://www.nongnu.org/atool/
278 The latest version of atool should always be available on this site.
283 The author of atool and this document, Oskar Liljeblad, can be reached by
286 oskar@osk.mine.nu (mailto:oskar@osk.mine.nu)
288 Please send bug reports, suggestions, ideas or comments in general to me -
289 I would like to hear from you if you like (or don't like) atool.
291 Known bugs and missing features
292 ===============================
294 Please see the KNOWN BUGS section of the atool.1 manual page.
299 Please see the TODO document.