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)
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