shar(1) User Commands shar(1)NAMEshar - create a shell archive
SYNOPSISshar [-flag [value]]... [--opt-name[[=| ]value]]... [file ...]
If no files are specified, the list of input files is read from a stan‐
dard input. Standard input must not be a terminal.
DESCRIPTIONshar creates "shell archives" (or shar files) which are in text format
and can be emailed. These files may be unpacked later by executing
them with /bin/sh. The resulting archive is sent to standard out
unless the -o option is given. A wide range of features provide exten‐
sive flexibility in manufacturing shars and in specifying shar "smart‐
ness". Archives may be fairly simple (--vanilla-operation) or essen‐
tially a mailable tar archive. Options may be specified in any order
until a file argument is recognized. If the --intermix-type option has
been specified, more compression and encoding options will be recog‐
nized between the file arguments. Though this program supports uuen‐
code-d files, they are deprecated. If you are emailing files, please
consider mime-encoded files. If you do uuencode, base 64 is the pre‐
ferred encoding method.
OPTIONS
specifying compression
-p, --intermix-type
specify compression for input files. This option must not
appear in combination with any of the following options:
vanilla-operation.
Allow positional parameter options. The compression method and
encoding method options may be intermixed with file names.
Files named after these options will be processed in the speci‐
fied way.
-C program, --compactor=program
specify compaction (compression) program. This option may
appear an unlimited number of times. This option must not
appear in combination with any of the following options:
vanilla-operation.
The gzip, bzip2 and compress compactor commands may be specified
by the program name as the option name, e.g. --gzip. Those
options, however, are being deprecated. There is also the xz
compactor now. Specify xz with -C xz or --compactor=xz.
Specifying the compactor "none" will then disable file compres‐
sion, even for non-text files. Any other compactor will force
uuencoding of files, and the recipient must have uudecode to
unpack the archive. (Compressed files are never processed as
plain text.)
Specifying the compactor compress is deprecated.
-g level, --level-of-compression=level
pass LEVEL for compression. This option takes an integer number
as its argument. The value of level is constrained to being:
in the range 1 through 9
The default level for this option is:
9
Some compression programs allow for a level of compression. The
default is 9, but this option allows you to specify something
else. This value is used by gzip, bzip2 and xz, but not com‐
press.
-j, --bzip2
bzip2 and uuencode files. This option may appear an unlimited
number of times.
bzip2 compress and uuencode all files prior to packing. The
recipient must have uudecode bzip2 in order to unpack.
NOTE: THIS OPTION IS DEPRECATED
-z, --gzip
gzip and uuencode files. This option may appear an unlimited
number of times.
gzip compress and uuencode all files prior to packing. The
recipient must have uudecode and gzip in order to unpack.
NOTE: THIS OPTION IS DEPRECATED
-Z, --compress
compress and uuencode files. This option may appear an unlim‐
ited number of times.
compress and uuencode all files prior to packing. The recipient
must have uudecode and compress in order to unpack.
NOTE: THIS OPTION IS DEPRECATED
--level-for-gzip
This is an alias for the --level-of-compression option.
NOTE: THIS OPTION IS DEPRECATED
-b bits, --bits-per-code=bits
pass bits (default 12) to compress. The default bits for this
option is:
12
This is the compression factor used by the compress program.
NOTE: THIS OPTION IS DEPRECATED
specifying file encoding methodology
Files may be stored in the shar either as plain text or uuencoded. By
default, the program selects which by examining the file. You may
force the selection for all files. In intermixed option/file mode,
this setting may be changed during processing.
-M, --mixed-uuencode
decide uuencoding for each file. This option is a member of the
mixed-uuencode class of options.
Automatically determine if the files are text or binary and ar‐
chive correctly. Files found to be binary are uuencoded prior
to packing. This is the default behavior for shar.
For a file to be considered a text file instead of a binary
file, all the following should be true:
The file does not contain any ASCII control character besides BS
(backspace), HT (horizontal tab), LF (new line) or FF (form
feed).
The file contains no character with its eighth-bit set.
The file contains no line beginning with the five letters "from
", capitalized or not. (Mail handling programs will often gra‐
tuitously insert a > character before it.)
The file is either empty or ends with a LF (newline) byte.
No line in the file contains more than 200 characters. For
counting purpose, lines are separated by a LF (newline).
-B, --uuencode
treat all files as binary. This option is a member of the
mixed-uuencode class of options.
Use uuencode prior to packing all files. This increases the
size of the archive. The recipient must have uudecode in order
to unpack. Compressed files are always encoded.
-T, --text-files
treat all files as text. This option is a member of the mixed-
uuencode class of options.
If you have files with non-ascii bytes or text that some mail
handling programs do not like, you may find difficulties. How‐
ever, if you are using FTP or SSH/SCP, the non-conforming text
files should be okay.
specifying file selection and output modes
-o prefix, --output-prefix=prefix
print output to file PREFIX.nn.
Save the archive to files prefix.01 thru prefix.nn instead of
sending all output to standard out. Must be specified when the
--whole-size-limit or --split-size-limit options are specified.
When prefix contains a % character, prefix is then interpreted
as a sprintf format, which should be able to display a single
decimal number. When prefix does not contain such a % charac‐
ter, the string .%02d is internally appended.
-l size, --whole-size-limit=size
split archive, not files, to size. This option is a member of
the whole-size-limit class of options. This option must appear
in combination with the following options: output-prefix. This
option takes an integer number as its argument. The value of
size is constrained to being:
in the range 8 through 1023, or
in the range 8192 through 4194304
Limit the output file size to size bytes, but don't split input
files. If size is less than 1024, then it will be multiplied by
1024. The value may also be specified with a k, K, m or M suf‐
fix. The number is then multiplied by 1000, 1024, 1000000, or
1048576, respectively. 4M (4194304) is the maximum allowed.
Unlike the split-size-limit option, this allows the recipient of
the shell archives to be unpacked in any order.
-L size, --split-size-limit=size
split archive or files to size. This option is a member of the
whole-size-limit class of options. This option must appear in
combination with the following options: output-prefix. This
option takes an integer number as its argument. The value of
size is constrained to being:
in the range 8 through 1023, or
in the range 8192 through 4194304
Limit output file size to size bytes, splitting files if neces‐
sary. The allowed values are specified as with the --whole-
size-limit option.
The archive parts created with this option must be unpacked in
the correct order. If the recipient of the shell archives wants
to put all of them in a single email folder (file), they will
have to be saved in the correct order for unshar to unpack them
all at once (using one of the split archive options). see:
unshar Invocation.
-I file, --input-file-list=file
read file list from a file.
This option causes file to be reopened as standard input. If no
files are found on the input line, then standard input is read
for input file names. Use of this option will prohibit input
files from being listed on the command line.
Input must be in a form similar to that generated by find, one
filename per line. This switch is especially useful when the
command line will not hold the list of files to be archived.
If the --intermix-type option is specified on the command line,
then the compression options may be included in the standard
input on lines by themselves and no file name may begin with a
hyphen.
For example:
{ echo --compact xz
find . -type f -print | sort
} | shar-S -p -L50K -o /somewhere/big
-S, --stdin-file-list
read file list from standard input.
This option is actually a no-op. It is a wrapper for --input-
file-list=-.
NOTE: THIS OPTION IS DEPRECATED
Controlling the shar headers
-n name, --archive-name=name
use name to document the archive.
Name of archive to be included in the subject header of the shar
files. See the --net-headers option.
-s who@where, --submitter=who@where
override the submitter name.
shar will normally determine the submitter name by querying the
system. Use this option if it is being done on behalf of
another.
-a, --net-headers
output Submitted-by: & Archive-name: headers. This option must
appear in combination with the following options: archive-name.
Adds specialized email headers:
Submitted-by: who@@where
Archive-name: name/part##
The who@@where is normally derived, but can be specified with
the --submitter option. The name must be provided with the
--archive-name option. If the archive name includes a slash (/)
character, then the /part## is omitted. Thus -n xyzzy produces:
xyzzy/part01
xyzzy/part02
while -n xyzzy/patch produces:
xyzzy/patch01
xyzzy/patch02
and -n xyzzy/patch01. produces:
xyzzy/patch01.01
xyzzy/patch01.02
-c, --cut-mark
start the shar with a cut line.
A line saying 'Cut here' is placed at the start of each output
file.
-t, --translate
translate messages in the script.
Translate messages in the script. If you have set the LANG
environment variable, messages printed by shar will be in the
specified language. The produced script will still be emitted
using messages in the lingua franca of the computer world: Eng‐
lish. This option will cause the script messages to appear in
the languages specified by the LANG environment variable set
when the script is produced.
Protecting against transmission issues:
--no-character-count
do not use `wc -c' to check size.
Do NOT check each file with 'wc -c' after unpack. The default
is to check.
-D, --no-md5-digest
do not use md5sum digest to verify.
Do not use md5sum digest to verify the unpacked files. The
default is to check.
-F, --force-prefix
apply the prefix character on every line.
Forces the prefix character to be prepended to every line, even
if not required. This option may slightly increase the size of
the archive, especially if --uuencode or a compression option is
used.
-d delim, --here-delimiter=delim
use delim to delimit the files. The default delim for this
option is:
SHAR_EOF
Use DELIM to delimit the files in the shar instead of SHAR_EOF.
This is for those who want to personalize their shar files. The
delimiter will always be prefixed and suffixed with underscores.
Producing different kinds of shars:
-V, --vanilla-operation
produce very simple shars.
This option produces vanilla shars which rely only upon the
existence of echo, test and sed in the unpacking environment.
It changes the default behavior from mixed mode (--mixed-uuen‐
code) to text mode (--text-files). Warnings are produced if
options are specified that will require decompression or decod‐
ing in the unpacking environment.
-P, --no-piping
use temporary files between programs.
In the shar file, use a temporary file to hold file contents
between unpacking stages instead of using pipes. This option is
mandatory when you know the unpacking will happen on systems
that do not support pipes.
-x, --no-check-existing
blindly overwrite existing files.
Create the archive so that when processed it will overwrite
existing files without checking first. If neither this option
nor the --query-user option is specified, the unpack will not
overwrite pre-existing files. In all cases, however, if --cut-
mark is passed as a parameter to the script when unpacking, then
existing files will be overwritten unconditionally.
sh shar-archive-file -c
-X, --query-user
ask user before overwriting files. This option must not appear
in combination with any of the following options: vanilla-opera‐
tion.
When unpacking, interactively ask the user if files should be
overwritten. Do not use for shars submitted to the net.
Use of this option produces shars which will cause problems with
some unshar-style procedures, particularily when used together
with vanilla mode (--vanilla-operation). Use this feature
mainly for archives to be passed among agreeable parties. Cer‐
tainly, -X is not for shell archives which are to be submitted
to Usenet or other public networks.
The problem is that unshar programs or procedures often feed
/bin/sh from its standard input, thus putting /bin/sh and the
shell archive script in competition for input lines. As an
attempt to alleviate this problem, shar will try to detect if
/dev/tty exists at the receiving site and will use it to read
user replies. But this does not work in all cases, it may hap‐
pen that the receiving user will have to avoid using unshar pro‐
grams or procedures, and call /bin/sh directly. In vanilla
mode, using /dev/tty is not even attempted.
-m, --no-timestamp
do not restore modification times.
Avoid generating 'touch' commands to restore the file modifica‐
tion dates when unpacking files from the archive.
When file modification times are not preserved, project build
programs like "make" will see built files older than the files
they get built from. This is why, when this option is not used,
a special effort is made to restore timestamps.
-Q, --quiet-unshar
avoid verbose messages at unshar time.
Verbose OFF. Disables the inclusion of comments to be output
when the archive is unpacked.
-f, --basename
restore in one directory, despite hierarchy.
Restore by the base file name only, rather than path. This
option causes only file names to be used, which is useful when
building a shar from several directories, or another directory.
Note that if a directory name is passed to shar, the substruc‐
ture of that directory will be restored whether this option is
specified or not.
Internationalization options:
--no-i18n
do not internationalize.
Do not produce internationalized shell archives, use default
English messages. By default, shar produces archives that will
try to output messages in the unpackers preferred language (as
determined by the LANG/LC_MESSAGES environmental variables) when
they are unpacked. If no message file for the unpackers lan‐
guage is found at unpack time, messages will be in English.
--print-text-domain-dir
print directory with shar messages.
Prints the directory shar looks in to find messages files for
different languages, then immediately exits.
user feedback/entertainment
-q, --quiet
do not output verbose messages.
omit progress messages.
--silent
This is an alias for the --quiet option.
-h, --help
Display usage information and exit.
-!, --more-help
Pass the extended usage information through a pager.
-R [rcfile], --save-opts[=rcfile]
Save the option state to rcfile. The default is the last con‐
figuration file listed in the OPTION PRESETS section, below.
-r rcfile, --load-opts=rcfile, --no-load-opts
Load options from rcfile. The no-load-opts form will disable
the loading of earlier RC/INI files. --no-load-opts is handled
early, out of order.
-v [{v|c|n}], --version[={v|c|n}]
Output version of program and exit. The default mode is `v', a
simple version. The `c' mode will print copyright information
and `n' will print the full copyright notice.
OPTION PRESETS
Any option that is not marked as not presettable may be preset by load‐
ing values from configuration ("RC" or ".INI") file(s). The file
"$HOME/.sharrc" will be used, if present.
WARNINGS
No attempt is made to restore the protection and modification dates for
directories, even if this is done by default for files. Thus, if a
directory is given to shar, the protection and modification dates of
corresponding unpacked directory may not match those of the original.
If a directory is passed to shar, it may be scanned more than once, to
conserve memory. Therefore, do not change the directory contents while
shar is running.
Be careful that the output file(s) are not included in the inputs or
shar may loop until the disk fills up. Be particularly careful when a
directory is passed to shar that the output files are not in that
directory or a subdirectory of it.
Use of the compression and encoding options will slow the archive
process, perhaps considerably.
Use of the --query-user produces shars which will cause problems with
many unshar procedures. Use this feature only for archives to be
passed among agreeable parties. Certainly, query-user is NOT for shell
archives which are to be distributed across the net. The use of com‐
pression in net shars will cause you to be flamed off the earth. Not
using the --no-timestamp or --force-prefix options may also get you
occasional complaints. Put these options into your ~/.sharrc file.
FILES
See OPTION PRESETS for configuration files.
EXAMPLES
The first shows how to make a shell archive out of all C program
sources. The second produces a shell archive with all .c and .h files,
which unpacks silently. The third gives a shell archive of all uuen‐
coded .arc files, into numbered files starting from arc.sh.01. The
last example gives a shell archive which will use only the file names
at unpack time.
shar *.c > cprog.shar
shar-Q *.[ch] > cprog.shar
shar-B -l28 -oarc.sh *.arc
shar-f /lcl/src/u*.c > u.sh
EXIT STATUS
One of the following exit values will be returned:
0 (EXIT_SUCCESS)
Successful program execution.
1 (EXIT_OPTION_ERROR)
The command options were misconfigured.
2 (EXIT_FILE_NOT_FOUND)
a specified input could not be found
3 (EXIT_CANNOT_OPENDIR)
open/close of specified directory failed
4 (EXIT_FAILED)
Resource limit/miscelleaneous shar command failure
63 (EXIT_BUG)
There is a shar command bug. Please report it.
66 (EX_NOINPUT)
A specified configuration file could not be loaded.
70 (EX_SOFTWARE)
libopts had an internal operational error. Please report it to
autogen-users@lists.sourceforge.net. Thank you.
SEE ALSOunshar(1)AUTHORS
The shar and unshar programs is the collective work of many authors.
Many people contributed by reporting problems, suggesting various
improvements or submitting actual code. A list of these people is in
the THANKS file in the sharutils distribution.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1994-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc. all rights
reserved. This program is released under the terms of the GNU General
Public License, version 3 or later.
BUGS
Please put sharutils in the subject line for emailed bug reports. It
helps to spot the message.
Please send bug reports to: bug-gnu-utils@gnu.org
NOTES
This manual page was AutoGen-erated from the shar option definitions.
GNU sharutils (4.13.3) 06 Jan 2013 shar(1)
