File Format Details
The ar format has never been standardized; modern archives are based on a common format with two known variants, BSD and GNU.
Historically there have been other variants including AIX (small), AIX (big) and Coherent, which all vary significantly from the common format.
Debian ".deb" archives use the common format.
An ar file begins with a global header, followed by a header and data section for each file stored within the ar file.
The data section is 2 byte aligned. If it would end on an odd offset, a '\n' is used as filler.
Read more about this topic: Ar (Unix)
Famous quotes containing the words file and/or details:
“While waiting to get married, several forms of employment were acceptable. Teaching kindergarten was for those girls who stayed in school four years. The rest were secretaries, typists, file clerks, or receptionists in insurance firms or banks, preferably those owned or run by the family, but respectable enough if the boss was an upstanding Christian member of the community.”
—Barbara Howar (b. 1934)
“Patience is a most necessary qualification for business; many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request. One must seem to hear the unreasonable demands of the petulant, unmoved, and the tedious details of the dull, untired. That is the least price that a man must pay for a high station.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)