.TH AR 5 .SH NAMEar \- archive (library) file format.SH SYNOPSIS.B #include <ar.h>.SH DESCRIPTIONThe archive command.I aris used to combine several files intoone.Archives are used mainly as libraries to be searchedby the link-editor.I ld..PPA file produced by.I arhas a magic number at the start,followed by the constituent files, each preceded by a file header.The magic number and header layout as described in theinclude file are:.RS.PP.nf.ta \w'#define 'u +\w'ARMAG 'u.so /usr/include/ar.h.fi.RE.LPThe name is a null-terminated string; the date is in theform of.IR time (2);the user ID and group ID are numbers; the mode is a bit patternper.IR chmod (2);the size is counted in bytes..PPEach file begins on a word boundary;a null byte is inserted between files if necessary.Nevertheless the size given reflects theactual size of the file exclusive of padding..PPNotice there is no provision for empty areas in an archivefile..SH "SEE ALSO"ar(1), ld(1), nm(1).SH BUGSCoding user and group IDs as characters is a botch.