User's Manual ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RAR 6.21 console version ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Welcome to the RAR Archiver! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~ RAR is a console application allowing to manage archive files in command line mode. RAR provides compression, encryption, data recovery and many other functions described in this manual. RAR supports only RAR format archives, which have .rar file name extension by default. ZIP and other formats are not supported. Even if you specify .zip extension when creating an archive, it will still be in RAR format. Windows users may install WinRAR, which supports more archive types including RAR and ZIP formats. WinRAR provides both graphical user interface and command line mode. While console RAR and GUI WinRAR have the similar command line syntax, some differences exist. So it is recommended to use this rar.txt manual for console RAR (rar.exe in case of Windows version) and winrar.chm WinRAR help file for GUI WinRAR (winrar.exe). Configuration file ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RAR and UnRAR for Unix read configuration information from .rarrc file in a user's home directory (stored in HOME environment variable) or in /etc directory. RAR and UnRAR for Windows read configuration information from rar.ini file, placed in the same directory as the rar.exe file. This file can contain the following string: switches=<any RAR switches separated by spaces> For example: switches=-m5 -s It is also possible to specify separate switch sets for individual RAR commands using the following syntax: switches_<command>=<any RAR switches separated by spaces> For example: switches_a=-m5 -s switches_x=-o+ 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 MB 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 Log file ~~~~~~~~ If switch -ilog is specified in the command line or configuration file, RAR will write informational messages about errors encountered while processing archives into a log file. Read the switch -ilog description for more details. The file order list for solid archiving - rarfiles.lst ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ rarfiles.lst contains a user-defined file list, which tells RAR the order in which 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 or in %APPDATA%\WinRAR directory, in Unix - to the user's home directory or in /etc. 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. Normally masks placed nearer to the top of list have a higher priority, but there is an exception from this rule. If rarfiles.lst contains such two masks that all files matched by one mask are also matched by another, that mask which matches a smaller subset of file names will have higher priority regardless of its position in the list. For example, if you have *.cpp and f*.cpp masks, f*.cpp has a higher priority, so the position of 'filename.cpp' will be chosen according to 'f*.cpp', not '*.cpp'. RAR command line syntax ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Syntax RAR <command> [ -<switches> ] <archive> [ <@listfiles...> ] [ <files...> ] [ <path_to_extract\> ] Description Command is a single character or string specifying an action to be performed by RAR. Switches are designed to modify the way RAR performs such action. Other parameters are archive name and files to be archived or extracted. Listfiles are plain text files containing names of files to process. File names must start at the first column. It is possible to put comments to the listfile after // characters. For example, you can create backup.lst containing the following strings: c:\work\doc\*.txt //backup text documents c:\work\image\*.bmp //backup pictures c:\work\misc and then run: rar a backup @backup.lst If you wish to read file names from stdin (standard input), specify the empty listfile name (just @). By default, console RAR uses the single byte encoding in list files, but it can be redefined with -sc<charset>l switch. You can specify both usual file names and list files in the same command line. If neither files nor listfiles are specified, then *.* is implied and RAR will process all files. path_to_extract includes the destination directory name followed by a path separator character. For example, it can be c:\dest\ in Windows or data/ in Unix. It specifies the directory to place extracted files in 'x' and 'e' commands. This directory is created by RAR if it does not exist yet. Alternatively it can be set with -op<path> switch. Many RAR commands, such as extraction, test or list, allow to use wildcards in archive name. If no extension is specified in archive mask, RAR assumes .rar, so * means all archives with .rar extension. If you need to process all archives without extension, use *. mask. *.* mask selects all files. Wildcards in archive name are not allowed when archiving and deleting. In Unix you need to enclose RAR command line parameters containing wildcards in single or double quotes to prevent their expansion by Unix shell. For example, this command will extract *.asm files from all *.rar archives in current directory: rar e '*.rar' '*.asm' Command could be any of the following: a Add files to archive. Examples: 1) add all *.hlp files from the current directory to the archive help.rar: rar a help *.hlp 2) archive all files from the current directory and subdirectories to 362000 bytes size solid, self-extracting volumes and add the recovery record to each volume: rar a -r -v362 -s -sfx -rr save Because no file names are specified, all files (*) are assumed. 3) as a special exception, if directory name is specified as an argument and if directory name does not include file masks and trailing path separator, the entire contents of the directory and all subdirectories will be added to the archive even if switch -r is not specified. The following command will add all files from the directory Bitmaps and its subdirectories to the RAR archive Pictures.rar: rar a Pictures.rar Bitmaps 4) if directory name includes the trailing path separator, normal rules apply and you need to specify switch -r to process its subdirectories. The following command will add all files from directory Bitmaps, but not from its subdirectories, because switch -r is not specified: rar a Pictures.rar Bitmaps\* c Add archive comment. Comments are displayed while the archive is being processed. Comment length is limited to 256 KB. Examples: rar c distrib.rar Also comments may be added from a file using -z[file] switch. The following command adds a comment from info.txt file: rar c -zinfo.txt dummy ch Change archive parameters. This command can be used with most of archive modification switches to modify archive parameters. It is especially convenient for switches like -cl, -cu, -tl, which do not have a dedicated command. It is not able to recompress, encrypt or decrypt archive data and it cannot merge or create volumes. If no switches are specified, 'ch' command just copies the archive data without modification. If used with -amr switch to restore the saved archive name and time, other archive modification switches are ignored. Example: Set archive time to latest file: rar ch -tl files.rar cw Write archive comment to specified file. Format of output file depends on -sc switch. If output file name is not specified, comment data will be sent to stdout. Examples: 1) rar cw arc comment.txt 2) rar cw -scuc arc unicode.txt 3) rar cw arc d Delete files from archive. If this command removes all files from archive, the empty archive is removed. e Extract files without archived paths. Extract files excluding their path component, so all files are created in the same destination directory. Use 'x' command if you wish to extract full pathnames. Example: rar e -or html.rar *.css css\ extract all *.css files from html.rar archive to 'css' directory excluding archived paths. Rename extracted files automatically in case several files have the same name. f Freshen files in archive. Updates archived files older than files to add. This command will not add new files to the archive. i[i|c|h|t]=<string> Find string in archives. Supports following optional parameters: i - case insensitive search (default); c - case sensitive search; h - hexadecimal search; t - use ANSI, UTF-8, UTF-16 and OEM (Windows only) character tables; If no parameters are specified, it is possible to use the simplified command syntax i<string> instead of i=<string> It is allowed to specify 't' modifier with other parameters, for example, ict=string performs case sensitive search using all mentioned above character tables. Examples: 1) rar "ic=first level" -r c:\*.rar *.txt Perform case sensitive search of "first level" string in *.txt files in *.rar archives on the disk c: 2) rar ih=f0e0aeaeab2d83e3a9 -r e:\texts\*.rar Search for hex string f0 e0 ae ae ab 2d 83 e3 a9 in rar archives in e:\texts directory. k Lock archive. RAR cannot modify locked archives, so locking important archives prevents their accidental modification by RAR. Such protection might be especially useful in case of RAR commands processing archives in groups. This command is not intended or able to prevent modification by other tools or willful third party. It implements a safety measure only for accidental data change by RAR. Example: rar k final.rar l[t[a],b] List archive contents [technical [all], bare]. 'l' command lists archived file attributes, size, date, time and name, one file per line. If file is encrypted, line starts from '*' character. 'lt' displays the detailed file information in multiline mode. This information includes file checksum value, host OS, compression options and other parameters. 'lta' provide the detailed information not only for files, but also for service headers like NTFS streams or file security data. 'lb' lists bare file names with path, one per line, without any additional information. You can use -v switch to list contents of all volumes in volume set: rar l -v vol.part1.rar Commands 'lt', 'lta' and 'lb' are equal to 'vt', 'vta' and 'vb' correspondingly. 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. Send unpacked file data to stdout. Informational messages are suppressed with this command, so they are not mixed with file data. r Repair archive. Archive repairing is performed in two stages. First, the damaged archive is searched for a recovery record (see 'rr' command). If archive contains the previously added recovery record and if damaged data area is continuous and smaller than error correction code size in recovery record, chance of successful archive reconstruction is high. When this stage has been completed, a new archive is created, named as fixed.arcname.rar, where 'arcname' is the original (damaged) archive name. If broken archive does not contain a recovery record or if archive is not completely recovered due to major damage, second stage is performed. During this stage only the archive structure is reconstructed and it is impossible to recover files which fail checksum validation, it is still possible, however, to recover undamaged files, which were inaccessible due to the broken archive structure. Mostly this is useful for non-solid archives. This stage is never efficient for archives with encrypted file headers, which can be repaired only if recovery record is present. When the second stage is completed, the reconstructed archive is saved as rebuilt.arcname.rar, where 'arcname' is the original archive name. By default, repaired archives are created in the current directory, but you can append an optional destpath\ parameter to specify another destination directory. Example: rar r buggy.rar c:\fixed\ repair buggy.rar and place the result to 'c:\fixed' directory. rc Reconstruct missing and damaged volumes using recovery volumes (.rev files). You need to specify any existing .rar or .rev volume as the archive name. Example: rar rc backup.part03.rar Read 'rv' command description for information about recovery volumes. rn Rename archived files. The command syntax is: rar rn <arcname> <srcname1> <destname1> ... <srcnameN> <destnameN> For example, the following command: rar rn data.rar readme.txt readme.bak info.txt info.bak will rename readme.txt to readme.bak and info.txt to info.bak in the