GNU Sharutils is a set of utilities to handle
shell archives. The GNU shar utility produces a single
file
File or filing may refer to:
Mechanical tools and processes
* File (tool), a tool used to ''remove'' fine amounts of material from a workpiece
** Filing (metalworking), a material removal process in manufacturing
** Nail file, a tool used to g ...
out of many files and prepares them for transmission by
electronic mail
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
services, for example by converting
binary file
A binary file is a computer file that is not a text file. The term "binary file" is often used as a term meaning "non-text file". Many binary file formats contain parts that can be interpreted as text; for example, some computer document fi ...
s into plain
ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
text.
A shell archive is a collection of files that can be unpacked by the
Bourne shell
The Bourne shell (sh) is a shell command-line interpreter for computer operating systems.
The Bourne shell was the default shell for Version 7 Unix. Unix-like systems continue to have /bin/sh—which will be the Bourne shell, or a symbolic link ...
. A wide range of features provide extensive flexibility in manufacturing shar archives and in specifying shar smartness. For example, shar may
compress
compress is a Unix shell compression program based on the LZW compression algorithm. Compared to more modern compression utilities such as gzip and bzip2, compress performs faster and with less memory usage, at the cost of a significantly l ...
files,
uuencode binary files, split long files and construct multi-part mailings, ensure correct unsharing order, and provide
md5sum
is a computer program that calculates and verifies 128-bit MD5 hashes, as described in RFC 1321. The MD5 hash functions as a compact digital fingerprint of a file. As with all such hashing algorithms, there is theoretically an unlimited number ...
or byte count verification.
GNU unshar scans a set of mail messages looking for the start of shell archives. It will automatically strip off the mail headers and other introductory text. The archive bodies are then unpacked by a copy of the shell. unshar may also process files containing concatenated shell archives.
See also
*
shar
In the Unix operating system, shar (an abbreviation of ''shell archive'') is an archive format created with the Unix shar utility. A shar file is a type of self-extracting archive, because it is a valid shell script, and executing it will recre ...
*
tar file format
*
ar (Unix)
The archiver, also known simply as ar, is a Unix utility that maintains groups of files as a single archive file. Today, ar is generally used only to create and update static library files that the link editor or linker uses and for generating . ...
*
archive formats
In computing, an archive file is a computer file that is composed of one or more files along with metadata. Archive files are used to collect multiple data files together into a single file for easier portability and storage, or simply to compres ...
External links
GNU Sharutils official websiteGNU Sharutils manual
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gnu Sharutils
Sharutils