User's Manual                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~                     RAR 3.71 32-bit console version                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                       =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-                       Welcome to the RAR Archiver!                       -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~    RAR is a powerful tool allowing you to manage and control archive  files. Console RAR supports archives only in RAR format, the names  of which usually have a ".rar" extension. ZIP and other formats  are not supported. Windows users may install GUI RAR version - WinRAR,  which is able to process many more archive types.  RAR features include:    *  Highly sophisticated, original compression algorithm    *  Special compression algorithms optimized for text, audio,       graphics data, 32 and 64-bit Intel executables    *  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, file security & more ... Configuration file ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  RAR for Unix reads configuration information from the file .rarrc  in the user's home directory (stored in HOME environment variable)  or in /etc directory.  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 string:  switches=any RAR switches, separated by spaces  For example:  switches=-m5 -s 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 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, into a log file. Read 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 line options (commands and switches) provide 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.    Listfiles are plain text files that contain names of files to process.    File names should start at the first column. It is possible to    put comments to the listfile after // characters. For example,    you may 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 @).    Win32 console RAR uses OEM (DOS) encoding in list files.    You may 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    In a UNIX environment you need to quote wildcards to avoid them    being expanded by shell. 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 using -z[file] switch.            The following command adds a comment from info.txt 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    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 -av, -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 used without any            switches, 'ch' command just copies the archive data without            modification.            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.            Examples:            1) rar cw arc comment.txt            2) rar cw -scuc arc unicode.txt    d       Delete files from archive. Please note if the processing of this            command results 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.    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, Unicode and OEM character tables (Win32 only);            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            Search for hex string f0 e0 ae ae ab 2d 83 e3 a9            in rar archives in e:\texts directory.    k       Lock archive. Any command which intends to change the archive            will be ignored.            Example:            rar k final.rar    l[t,b]  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            (host OS, solid flag and old version flag) is displayed            when 't' modifier is used. Modifier 'b' forces RAR to output            only bare file names without any additional information.    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.            You may use this command together with -inul switch to disable            all RAR messages and print only file data. It may be important            when you need to send a file to stdout for use in pipes.    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 been completed,            a new archive will be created, called fixed.arcname.rar,            where 'arcname' is the original (damaged) archive name.            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,            however, 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 rebuilt.arcname.rar, where 'arcname' is            the original archive name.            RAR/DOS32 version uses _recover.rar and _reconst.rar instead            of names mentioned aboves.            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 fixed.arcname.rar.            Example:            rar r buggy.rar    rc      Reconstruct missing and damaged volumes using recovery volumes            (.rev files). You need to specify any existing volume            as the archive name, for example, 'rar rc backup.part03.rar'            Read 'rv' command description for information about            recovery volumes.