--- /dev/null
+Welcome to libarchive!
+
+The libarchive project develops a portable, efficient C library that
+can read and write streaming archives in a variety of formats. It
+also includes implementations of the common `tar`, `cpio`, and `zcat`
+command-line tools that use the libarchive library.
+
+Questions? Issues?
+* http://www.libarchive.org is the home for ongoing libarchive development, including documentation, and links to the libarchive mailing lists.
+* To report an issue, use the issue tracker at https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/issues
+* To submit an enhancement to libarchive, please submit a pull request via GitHub: https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/pulls
+
+This distribution bundle includes the following components:
+* **libarchive**: a library for reading and writing streaming archives
+* **tar**: the 'bsdtar' program is a full-featured 'tar' implementation built on libarchive
+* **cpio**: the 'bsdcpio' program is a different interface to essentially the same functionality
+* **cat**: the 'bsdcat' program is a simple replacement tool for zcat, bzcat, xzcat, and such
+* **examples**: Some small example programs that you may find useful.
+* **examples/minitar**: a compact sample demonstrating use of libarchive.
+* **contrib**: Various items sent to me by third parties; please contact the authors with any questions.
+
+The top-level directory contains the following information files:
+* **NEWS** - highlights of recent changes
+* **COPYING** - what you can do with this
+* **INSTALL** - installation instructions
+* **README** - this file
+* **configure** - configuration script, see INSTALL for details.
+* **CMakeLists.txt** - input for "cmake" build tool, see INSTALL
+
+The following files in the top-level directory are used by the
+'configure' script:
+ * Makefile.am, aclocal.m4, configure.ac
+ - used to build this distribution, only needed by maintainers
+ * Makefile.in, config.h.in
+ - templates used by configure script
+
+Guide to Documentation installed by this system:
+ * bsdtar.1 explains the use of the bsdtar program
+ * bsdcpio.1 explains the use of the bsdcpio program
+ * bsdcat.1 explains the use of the bsdcat program
+ * libarchive.3 gives an overview of the library as a whole
+ * archive_read.3, archive_write.3, archive_write_disk.3, and
+ archive_read_disk.3 provide detailed calling sequences for the read
+ and write APIs
+ * archive_entry.3 details the "struct archive_entry" utility class
+ * archive_internals.3 provides some insight into libarchive's
+ internal structure and operation.
+ * libarchive-formats.5 documents the file formats supported by the library
+ * cpio.5, mtree.5, and tar.5 provide detailed information about these
+ popular archive formats, including hard-to-find details about
+ modern cpio and tar variants.
+The manual pages above are provided in the 'doc' directory in
+a number of different formats.
+
+You should also read the copious comments in "archive.h" and the
+source code for the sample programs for more details. Please let us
+know about any errors or omissions you find.
+
+Currently, the library automatically detects and reads the following fomats:
+ * GNU tar format (including GNU long filenames, long link names, and sparse files)
+ * Solaris 9 extended tar format (including ACLs)
+ * Old V7 tar archives
+ * POSIX ustar
+ * POSIX pax interchange format
+ * POSIX octet-oriented cpio
+ * SVR4 ASCII cpio
+ * POSIX octet-oriented cpio
+ * Binary cpio (big-endian or little-endian)
+ * ISO9660 CD-ROM images (with optional Rockridge or Joliet extensions)
+ * ZIP archives (with uncompressed or "deflate" compressed entries)
+ * GNU and BSD 'ar' archives
+ * 'mtree' format
+ * 7-Zip archives
+ * Microsoft CAB format
+ * LHA and LZH archives
+ * RAR archives
+ * XAR archives
+
+The library also detects and handles any of the following before evaluating the archive:
+ * uuencoded files
+ * files with RPM wrapper
+ * gzip compression
+ * bzip2 compression
+ * compress/LZW compression
+ * lzma, lzip, and xz compression
+ * lz4 compression
+ * lzop compression
+
+The library can create archives in any of the following formats:
+ * POSIX ustar
+ * POSIX pax interchange format
+ * "restricted" pax format, which will create ustar archives except for
+ entries that require pax extensions (for long filenames, ACLs, etc).
+ * Old GNU tar format
+ * Old V7 tar format
+ * POSIX octet-oriented cpio
+ * SVR4 "newc" cpio
+ * shar archives
+ * ZIP archives (with uncompressed or "deflate" compressed entries)
+ * GNU and BSD 'ar' archives
+ * 'mtree' format
+ * ISO9660 format
+ * 7-Zip archives
+ * XAR archives
+
+When creating archives, the result can be filtered with any of the following:
+ * uuencode
+ * gzip compression
+ * bzip2 compression
+ * compress/LZW compression
+ * lzma, lzip, and xz compression
+ * lz4 compression
+ * lzop compression
+
+Notes about the library architecture:
+
+ * This is a heavily stream-oriented system. There is no direct
+ support for in-place modification or random access.
+
+ * The library is designed to be extended with new compression and
+ archive formats. The only requirement is that the format be
+ readable or writable as a stream and that each archive entry be
+ independent. There are articles on the libarchive Wiki explaining
+ how to extend libarchive.
+
+ * On read, compression and format are always detected automatically.
+
+ * I've attempted to minimize static link pollution. If you don't
+ explicitly invoke a particular feature (such as support for a
+ particular compression or format), it won't get pulled in to
+ statically-linked programs. In particular, if you don't explicitly
+ enable a particular compression or decompression support, you won't
+ need to link against the corresponding compression or decompression
+ libraries. This also reduces the size of statically-linked
+ binaries in environments where that matters.
+
+ * On read, the library accepts whatever blocks you hand it.
+ Your read callback is free to pass the library a byte at a time
+ or mmap the entire archive and give it to the library at once.
+ On write, the library always produces correctly-blocked output.
+
+ * The object-style approach allows you to have multiple archive streams
+ open at once. bsdtar uses this in its "@archive" extension.
+
+ * The archive itself is read/written using callback functions.
+ You can read an archive directly from an in-memory buffer or
+ write it to a socket, if you wish. There are some utility
+ functions to provide easy-to-use "open file," etc, capabilities.
+
+ * The read/write APIs are designed to allow individual entries
+ to be read or written to any data source: You can create
+ a block of data in memory and add it to a tar archive without
+ first writing a temporary file. You can also read an entry from
+ an archive and write the data directly to a socket. If you want
+ to read/write entries to disk, there are convenience functions to
+ make this especially easy.
+
+ * Note: "pax interchange format" is really an extended tar format,
+ despite what the name says.
projects / thirdparty / libarchive.git / commitdiff
