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User's Manual ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RAR 2.50 32-bit console version (Unix and Windows) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Welcome to the RAR Archiver! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~ RAR is a powerful tool which allows you to manage and control archive files. The archive is usually a regular file, which name has a ".rar" suffix. RAR features include:- * Highly sophisticated, original compression algorithm * Special compression algorithm optimized for multimedia data * Better compression than similar tools, using 'solid' archiving * Authenticity verification (registered version only) * Self-extracting archives and volumes (SFX) * Ability to recover physically damaged archives * Locking, password, file order list, disk volume labels & more ... Configuration file ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RAR for Unix reads configuration information from the file .rarrc in the user's home directory (stored in HOME environment variable). RAR for Windows reads configuration information from the file rar.ini, placed in the same directory as the rar.exe file. This file may contain the following strings: switches=<any RAR switches, separated with a space> regname=<your registration name> regcode=<your code as stated in registration> Log file ~~~~~~~~ If the switch -ilog is specified in the command line or configuration file, RAR will write informational messages, concerning errors encountered while processing archives, to a log file. In Unix this file is named .rarlog and placed in the user's home directory. In Windows it is named rar.log and placed in the same directory as the rar.exe file. The file order list for solid archiving - rarfiles.lst ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ rarfiles.lst contains user-defined file list which tells RAR the order to add files to a solid archive. It may contain file names, wildcards and special entry - $default. The default entry defines the place in order list for files not matched with other entries in this file. The comment character is ';'. In Windows this file should be placed in the same directory as RAR, in Unix - to the user's home directory. Tips to provide improved compression and speed of operation: - similar files should be grouped together in the archive; - frequently accessed files should be placed at the beginning. RAR command line syntax ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Syntax RAR <command> [ -<switches> ] <archive> <@listfiles...> [ <files...> ] Description Command line options (commands and switches) provides control of creating and managing archives with RAR. The command is a string (or a single letter) which commands RAR to perform a corresponding action. Switches are designed to modify the way RAR performs the action. Other parameters are archive name and files to be archived into or extracted from the archive. In a UNIX environment you need to quote wildcards to avoid them being processed by RAR itself. For example, this command will extract *.asm files from RAR archives in current path: rar e '*.rar' '*.asm' Command could be any of the following: a Add files to archive. Example: create or update existent archive myarch, adding all files in the current directory rar a myarch c Add archive comment. Comments are displayed while the archive is being processed. Comment length is limited to 62000 bytes Examples: rar c distrib.rar Also comments may be added from a file: rar c -zinfo.txt dummy cf Add files comment. File comments are displayed when the 'v' command is given. File comment length is limited to 32767 bytes. Example: rar cf bigarch *.txt cw Write archive comment to specified file. Example: rar cw oldarch comment.txt d Delete files from archive. Note, if the processing of this command resulted in removing all the files from the archive, the empty archive would removed. e Extract files to current directory. f Freshen files in archive. Updates those files changed since they were packed to the archive. This command will not add new files to the archive. k Lock archive. Any command which intend to change the archive will be ignored. Example: rar k final.rar l[t] List contents of archive [technical]. Files are listed as with the 'v' command with the exception of the file path. i.e. only the file name is displayed. Optional technical information is displayed when 't' modifier is used. m[f] Move to archive [files only]. Moving files and directories results in the files and directories being erased upon successful completion of the packing operation. Directories will not be removed if 'f' modifier is used and/or '-ed' switch is applied. p Print file to stdout. r Repair archive. Archive repairing is performed in two stages. First, the damaged archive is searched for a recovery record (see 'rr' command). If the archive contains a recovery record and if the portion of the damaged data is continuous and less than N*512 bytes, where N is number of recovery sectors placed into the archive, the chance of successful archive reconstruction is very high. When this stage has completed, a new archive will be created, called _RECOVER.RAR. If a broken archive does not contain a recovery record or if the archive is not completely recovered due to major damage, a second stage is performed. During this stage only the archive structure is reconstructed and it is impossible to recover files which fail the CRC validation, it is still possible to recover undamaged files which were inaccessible due to the broken archive structure. Mostly this is useful for non-solid archives. When the second stage is completed, the reconstructed archive will be saved as _RECONST.RAR. While the recovery is in progress, RAR may prompt the user for assistance when a suspicious file is detected. Suspicious entry Name: <possibly filename> Size: <size> Packed: <compressed size> Add it: Yes/No/All Answer 'y' to add this entry to the file _RECOVER.RAR. Example: rar r buggy.rar rr[N] Add data recovery record. Optionally, redundant information (recovery record) may be added to an archive. This will cause a small increase of the archive size and helps to recover archived files in case of floppy disk failure or data losses of any other kind. A recovery record contains up to 8 recovery sectors. The number of sectors may be specified directly in the 'rr' command (N = 1, 2 .. 8) or if it is not specified by the user it will be selected automatically according to the archive size: Archive size Number of sectors < 50Kb 2 50Kb-500Kb 4 > 500Kb 8 If data are damaged continuously then each rr-sector helps to recover 512 bytes of damaged information. This value may be lower in cases of multiple damage. The size of the recovery record may be approximately determined by the formula <archive size>/256 + <number of recovery sectors>*512 bytes. s[name] Convert archive to SFX. The archive is merged with SFX-module (using a module in file default.sfx or specified in the switch). In the Windows version default.sfx should be placed in the same directory as the rar.exe, in Unix - in the user's home directory. t Test archive files. This command performs a dummy file extraction, writing nothing to the output stream, in order to validate the specified file(s). Examples: Test archives in current directory: rar t * or for Unix: rar t '*' User may test archives in all sub-directories, starting with the current path: rar t -r * or for Unix: rar t -r '*' u Update files in archive. Adds files not already in the archive and updates files changed since they were packed to the archive. v[t] Verbosely list the contents of archive [technical]. Files are listed using the format: full pathname, file comment, original and compressed size, compression ratio, last update date and time, attributes, CRC, compression method and minimum RAR version required to extract. Optional technical information is displayed when 't' modifier is used. To list the contents of all archive volumes, use an asterisk ('*') in place of the archive file extension or use the '-v' switch. Example: direct archive content list (technical) to a file rar vt bambam >bambam.lst x Extract files with full path. Example: rar x -av- -c- dime 10cents.txt extract specified file to current path. AV check and comment show are disabled. Switches (used in conjunction with a command): -? Display help on commands and switches. The same as when none or an illegal command line option is entered. -- Stop switches scanning This switch tells to RAR that there is no more switches in the command line. It could be useful, if either archive or file name starts from '-' character. Without '--' switch such name would be treated as switch. Example: add all files from the current folder to the solid archive '-StrangeName' RAR a -s -- -StrangeName -ac Clear Archive attribute after compression or extraction (Windows version only). -ao Add files with Archive attribute set (Windows version only). Example: add all disk C: files with Archive attribute set to the 'f:backup' and clear files Archive attribute rar a -r -ac -ao f:backup c:\*.* -ap Set path inside archive. This path is merged to file names when adding files to an archive and removed from file names when extracting. For example, if you wish to add the file 'readme.txt' to the directory 'DOCS\ENG' of archive 'release', you may run: rar a -apDOCS\ENG release readme.txt or to extract 'ENG' to the current directory: rar x -apDOCS release DOCS\ENG\*.* -av Put authenticity verification (registered versions only). RAR will put, in every new and updated archive, information concerning the creator, last update time and archive name. If an archive, containing authenticity verification, is being modified and this switch is not specified, the authenticity verification information will be removed. When extracting, testing, listing or updating and archive with the '-av' switch, RAR will perform integrity validation and display the message: Verifying authenticity information ... In the case of successful authenticity verification, the message 'Ok', creator name and last update information will be displayed. In the case of authenticity verification failure, the message 'FAILED' will be displayed. The Authenticity Verification feature, '-av,' is recommended for use with archives in a software distribution environment. In order to enable the Authenticity verification feature, the program MUST be registered. Please contact your local distribution site or the world-wide distribution center. -av- Disable AV checking or adding. -cfg- Disable read configuration and environment. -cl Convert file names to lower case. -cu Convert file names to upper case. -c- Disable comments show. -dh Open shared files Allows to process files opened by other applications for writing. This option could be dangerous, because it allows to archive a file, which at the same time is modifying by an other application, so use it carefully. -ds Do not sort files while adding to a solid archive. -ep Exclude paths from names. This switch enables files to be added to an archive without including the path information. This could, of course, result in multiple files existing in the archive with the same name. -ep1 Exclude base dir from names. Do not store the path entered in the command line. Example: all files and directories from the directory tmp will be added to the archive 'pasta', but the path will not include 'tmp\' rar a -ep1 -r pasta 'tmp\*' This is equivalent to the commands: cd tmp rar a -ep1 -r pasta cd .. -e<atr> Specifies file exclude attributes mask. <atr> is a number in the decimal, octal (with leading '0') or hex (with leading '0x') format. If result of bitwise AND between <atr> and file attributes is nonzero, then file would not be added to archive. In the Windows version also is possible to use instead of digital mask symbols D, S, H, A and R to denote directories and files with system, hidden, archive and read-only attributes. The order in which the attributes are given is not significant. -f Freshen files. May be used with archive extraction or creation. The command string "a -f" is equivalent to the command 'f', you could also use the switch '-f' with the commands 'm' or 'mf'. If the switch '-f' is used with the commands 'x' or 'e', then only old files would be replaced with new versions extracted from the archive. -ierr Send all messages to stderr. -ilog Log errors to file. -inul Disable all messages. -isnd Enable sound. -kb Keep broken extracted files. RAR, by default, deletes files with CRC errors after extraction. The switch -kb specifies that files with CRC errors should not be deleted. -m<n> Set compression method: -m0 store do not compress file when adding to archive -m1 fastest use fastest method (less compressive) -m2 fast use fast compression method -m3 normal use normal (default) compression method -m4 good use good compression method (more compressive, but slower) -m5 best use best compression method (slightly more compressive, but slowest) By default RAR uses -m3 method (Normal compression). -md<n> Select dictionary size <n> in Kb. Must be 64, 128, 256, 512 or 1024 or a letter 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd' or 'e' respectively. The sliding dictionary is a special memory area used by the compression algorithm. If the size of the file being compressed (or the total files size in the case of a solid archive) is greater than the dictionary size, then increasing the dictionary size will generally increase compression ratio, decrease packing speed and increase memory requirements. Default sliding dictionary size in 32-bit versions of RAR is 256 Kb. In RAR versions for Unix, Windows and other 32-bit platforms it is possible to select five different sizes: 64, 128, 256, 512 or 1024 Kb. Besides, speed of extraction in these versions does not depend upon dictionary size. In 16-bit version RAR for DOS the sliding dictionary size is fixed and equal to 64 Kb. Though RAR for DOS provides extracting files from large dictionary archives. The amount of memory required to create large dictionary archives is determined as 5*<dictionary size>+2048Kb. About 1 Mb is required for extraction and 5*<dictionary size>+3072Kb to update solid archives. RAR for DOS can extract from large dictionary archives using conventional, EMS and disk memory. If no EMS or disk cache is available, the operation may slow down significantly. RAR for DOS cannot convert large dictionary archives to SFX with the default SFX module and cannot update such solid archives. Example: RAR a -s -mdd sources *.asm or RAR a -s -md512 sources *.asm Will create a solid archive using a 512 Kb dictionary. -mm[f] Multimedia compression [force]. Enables a special multimedia compression algorithm. It is intended to compress digital audio data containing up to four 8-bit or two 16-bit channels. It works well with true color (24-bit) bitmaps as well. Improvement in the compression ratio up to 30% over the normal compression may be achieved. When archiving file in the multimedia mode RAR performs intelligent data analysis and may use, for different parts of the file, general or multimedia compression depending on which is more suitable. Such analysis allows optimum performance when different data types are merged in the same file. The 'f' modifier forces the multimedia compression to be used for the whole file; it may help when certain multimedia files are to be compressed, but in most cases only increases archive size. Both the -m<N> "Set compression method" and -s "Create solid archive" switches can be used with multimedia compression, but they are in effect for those file parts where the general algorithm applies. If -mm is used with non-multimedia data, the compression ratio is usually unchanged in comparison with the general method, but due to multimedia analysis overhead, the packing speed is always slower. The usage of -mm is not recommended with normal data files. Example: rar a -m5 -s -mm All_My_Songs.rar *.wav Use the tightest compression method, solid archiving and multimedia compression with smart analysis, which method should be applied for particular data: -ol Save symbolic links as the link instead of the file. Unix versions only. -ow Save file owner and group information. Unix versions only. -o+ Overwrite existing files. -o- Do not overwrite existing files. -p Encrypt files with the string as password while archiving. The password is case-sensitive. If you omit the password on the command line, you will be prompted with message "Enter password". Example: rar a -pmyhoney secret1 *.txt add files *.txt and encrypt them with password "myhoney". -p- Do not query password -r Recurse subdirectories. May be used with commands: a, u, f, m, x, e, t, p, v, l, c, cf and s. When used with the commands 'a', 'u', 'f', 'm' will process files in all sub-directories as well as the current working directory. When used with the commands x, e, t, p, v, l, c, cf or s will process all archives in sub-directories as well as the current working directory. -r0 Similar to -r, but when used with the commands 'a', 'u', 'f', 'm' will recurse subdirectories only for those names, which include wildcard characters '*' and '?' -ri[:<s>] Set priority and sleep time. Available only in RAR for Windows. This switch is used to regulate system load by RAR in a multitasking environment. The possible task priority values are from 0 to 15. When is equal to 0, the default task priority is used, 1 corresponding to the lowest task priority, 15 - to the highest. The sleep time <s> is a value from 0 to 1000 (milliseconds). This is the period of time that RAR will give back to system after every read or write during the packing or unpacking operation. The sleep time setting is useful when several tasks with the same priority are running in the system. Example: execute RAR with default priority and 10 ms of sleep after each read or write rar a -r -sfx -ri0:10 backup *.* -rr[N] Add a data recovery record. This switch is used when creating or modifying archive to add a data recovery record to the archive. See the 'rr[N]' command description for details. -s Create solid archive. Solid is a special archive type. Please refer to the appendix "Glossary" for further information. Example: create solid archive sources.rar with 512 Kb dictionary, recursing all directories, starting with the current directory. Add only .asm files: rar a -s -md512 sources.rar *.asm -r -s<N> Create solid groups using file count Similar to -s, but reset solid statistics after compressing <N> files. Usually decreases compression, but also decreases losses in case of solid archive damages. -se Create solid groups using extension Similar to -s, but reset solid statistics if file extension is changed. Usually decreases compression, but also decreases losses from solid archive damages. -sv Create independent solid volumes Similar to -s, but reset solid statistics as soon as possible when starting a new volume. Ignored, if used to create non-volume archive. Usually slightly decreases compression, but also seriously decreases data losses, when one volume in volume set is damaged. In such case you may try to start extraction from the next volume after damaged. Note that because of internal buffering, sometimes RAR cannot reset dictionary immediately after creating a new volume and one or more small files in the beginning of new volume may still use data from the previous volume. -s- Disable solid archiving -sfx[name] Create SFX archives. If this switch is used when creating a new archive, a Self-Extracting archive (using a module in file default.sfx or specified in the switch) would be created. In the Windows version default.sfx should be placed in the same directory as the rar.exe, in Unix - in the user's home directory. Example: rar a -sfxidos.sfx -zscript.s myinst create SelF-eXtracting (SFX) archive using specified SFX-module and special installation script. -tk Keep original archive date. Prevents RAR from modifying the archive date when changing an archive. -tl Set archive time to newest file. Forces RAR to set the date of a changed archive to the date of the newest file in the archive. -u Update files. May be used with archive extraction or creation. The command string "a -u" is equivalent to the command 'u', you could also use the switch '-u' with the commands 'm' or 'mf'. If the switch '-u' is used with the commands 'x' or 'e', then files not present on the disk and files newer than their copies on the disk would extracted from the archive. -v<size>[k|b|f] Create volumes with size=<size>*1000 [*1024 | *1]. By default this switch uses <size> as thousands (1000) of bytes (not 1024 x bytes). You may also enter the size in kilobytes using the symbol 'k', in bytes using the symbol 'b' or select one from several predefined values using the symbol 'f' following the numerical value. Predefined values can be 360, 720, 1200, 1440 or 2880 and replaced with corresponding floppy disk size. If the size is omitted, autodetection will be used. If volumes are created on the same drive as the temporary files (current drive by default, but may be changed with the switch '-w'), the autodetected size becomes meaningless. In this case the volume size must be explicitly defined. If volumes are created on a drive OTHER than the drive containing the temporary files, then after the first volume has been created, the user will be prompted with: Create next volume: Yes/No/All/Quit At this moment in time, you should change the disks. Answering 'A' will cause all volumes to be created without a pause. The first volume file in a multi-volume set has the extension .RAR, following volumes are numbered from .R00 to .R99. When extracting or testing a multi-volume archive you must use only the first volume name (*.RAR). If there is no next volume on the drive and the disk is removable, the user will be prompted with: Insert disk with <next volume name> Insert the disk with the correct volume and press any key. If while extracting, the next volume is not found and volumes are placed on the non-removable disk, RAR will abort with the error message: Cannot find <volume name> Archive volumes may not be modified. The commands 'd', 'f', 'u', 's' can not be used with Multi-volume sets. The command 'a' may be used only for the creation of a new multi-volume sequence. It is possible, although unlikely, that the file size, of a file in a multi-volume set, could be greater than it's uncompressed size. This is due to the fact that 'storing' (no compression if size increases) cannot be enabled for multi-volume sets. Archive volumes may be Self-Extracting (SFX). Such an archive should be created using both the '-v' and '-sfx' switches. Example: create archive in volumes of fixed size: rar a -s -v1440 floparch.rar *.* will create solid volumes of size 1440000 bytes. -vd erase disk contents before creating volume All files and directories on the target disk will be erased when '-vd' is used. The switch applies only to removable media, the hard disk cannot be erased using this switch. -w Assign work directory as . This switch may be used to assign the directory for temporary files. -x<f> Exclude specified file <f>, wildcards may be used. You may specify the switch '-x' several times: Example: rar a -r -x*.bak -x*.rar rawfiles *.bak and *.rar files will not be added to rawfiles -x@<lf> Exclude files using specified list file. Example: rar a -x@exlist.txt arch *.exe -y Assume Yes on all queries. -z<f> Read archive comment from file <f>. Environment variable ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Default parameters may be added to the RAR command line by establishing an environment variable "RAR". For instance, in UNIX following lines may be added to your profile: RAR='-s -md1024' export RAR RAR will use this string as default parameters in the command line and will create "solid" archives with 1024 Kb sliding dictionary size. RAR handles options with priority as following: command line switches highest priority switches in the RAR variable lower priority switches saved in configuration file lowest priority Limitations ~~~~~~~~~~~ Pathname is limited to 259 symbols. Maximum archive comment length is 62000 bytes. Command limitations: The commands 'd','u','f','c','cf' will not operate with archive volumes. The command 'a' cannot be used to update an archive volume, only to create one. Exit values ~~~~~~~~~~~ RAR exits with a zero code (0) in case of successful operation. The exit code of non-zero means the operation is cancelled due to error: 255 USER BREAK User stopped the process 8 MEMORY ERROR Not enough memory for operation 7 USER ERROR Command line option error 6 OPEN ERROR Open file error 5 WRITE ERROR Write to disk error 4 LOCKED ARCHIVE Attempt to modify an archive previously locked by the 'k' command 3 CRC ERROR A CRC error occurred when unpacking 2 FATAL ERROR A fatal error occurred 1 WARNING Non fatal error(s) occurred 0 SUCCESS Successful operation (User exit) Glossary ~~~~~~~~ Archive Special file containing one or more files optionally compressed and/or encrypted. Compression A method of encoding data to reduce it's size. CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check. Mathematical method calculating special checking information for data validity. SFX Archive module used to extract files from when executed. (SelF-eXtracting module), usually in the form of a .EXE file. Solid An archive packed using a special compression method which sees all files as one continuous data stream. Particularly advantageous when packing a large number of small files. Volume Part of a split archive. Splitting an archive to volumes allows storing them on diskettes. Solid volumes must be extracted starting from first in sequence. Copyrights (c) 1993-99 Eugene Roshal