PAX(1)                     OpenBSD Reference Manual                     PAX(1)

NAME
     pax - read and write file archives and copy directory hierarchies

SYNOPSIS
     pax [-0cdjnOvz] [-E limit] [-f archive] [-G group] [-s replstr]
         [-T range] [-U user] [pattern ...]
     pax -r [-0cDdijknOuvYZz] [-E limit] [-f archive] [-G group] [-o options]
         [-p string] [-s replstr] [-T range] [-U user] [pattern ...]
     pax -w [-0adHijLOPtuvXz] [-B bytes] [-b blocksize] [-f archive]
         [-G group] [-o options] [-s replstr] [-T range] [-U user] [-x format]
         [file ...]
     pax -rw [-0DdHijkLlnOPtuvXYZ] [-G group] [-p string] [-s replstr]
         [-T range] [-U user] [file ...] directory

DESCRIPTION
     pax will read, write, and list the members of an archive file and will
     copy directory hierarchies.  pax operation is independent of the specific
     archive format and supports a wide variety of different archive formats.
     A list of supported archive formats can be found under the description of
     the -x option.

     The presence of the -r and the -w options specifies which of the follow-
     ing functional modes pax will operate under: list, read, write, and copy.

     <none>  List.  pax will write to standard output a table of contents of
             the members of the archive file read from standard input, whose
             pathnames match the specified pattern arguments.  The table of
             contents contains one filename per line and is written using sin-
             gle line buffering.

     -r      Read.  pax extracts the members of the archive file read from the
             standard input, with pathnames matching the specified pattern ar-
             guments.  The archive format and blocking is automatically deter-
             mined on input.  When an extracted file is a directory, the en-
             tire file hierarchy rooted at that directory is extracted.  All
             extracted files are created relative to the current file hierar-
             chy.  The setting of ownership, access and modification times,
             and file mode of the extracted files are discussed in more detail
             under the -p option.

     -w      Write.  pax writes an archive containing the file operands to
             standard output using the specified archive format.  When no file
             operands are specified, a list of files to copy with one per line
             is read from standard input.  When a file operand is also a di-
             rectory, the entire file hierarchy rooted at that directory will
             be included.

     -rw     Copy.  pax copies the file operands to the destination directory.
             When no file operands are specified, a list of files to copy with
             one per line is read from the standard input.  When a file
             operand is also a directory the entire file hierarchy rooted at
             that directory will be included.  The effect of the copy is as if
             the copied files were written to an archive file and then subse-
             quently extracted, except that there may be hard links between
             the original and the copied files (see the -l option below).

             Warning: The destination directory must not be one of the file
             operands or a member of a file hierarchy rooted at one of the
             file operands.  The result of a copy under these conditions is
             unpredictable.

     While processing a damaged archive during a read or list operation, pax
     will attempt to recover from media defects and will search through the
     archive to locate and process the largest number of archive members pos-
     sible (see the -E option for more details on error handling).

     The directory operand specifies a destination directory pathname.  If the
     directory operand does not exist, or it is not writable by the user, or
     it is not of type directory, pax will exit with a non-zero exit status.

     The pattern operand is used to select one or more pathnames of archive
     members.  Archive members are selected using the pattern matching nota-
     tion described by glob(3).  When the pattern operand is not supplied, all
     members of the archive will be selected.  When a pattern matches a direc-
     tory, the entire file hierarchy rooted at that directory will be select-
     ed.  When a pattern operand does not select at least one archive member,
     pax will write these pattern operands in a diagnostic message to standard
     error and then exit with a non-zero exit status.

     The file operand specifies the pathname of a file to be copied or
     archived.  When a file operand does not select at least one archive mem-
     ber, pax will write these file operand pathnames in a diagnostic message
     to standard error and then exit with a non-zero exit status.

     The options are as follows:

     -0      Use the NUL (`\0') character as a pathname terminator, instead of
             newline (`\n').  This applies only to the pathnames read from
             standard input in the write and copy modes, and to the pathnames
             written to standard output in list mode.  This option is expected
             to be used in concert with the -print0 function in find(1) or the
             -0 flag in xargs(1).

     -a      Append the given file operands to the end of an archive that was
             previously written.  If an archive format is not specified with a
             -x option, the format currently being used in the archive will be
             selected.  Any attempt to append to an archive in a format dif-
             ferent from the format already used in the archive will cause pax
             to exit immediately with a non-zero exit status.  The blocking
             size used in the archive volume where writing starts will contin-
             ue to be used for the remainder of that archive volume.

             Warning: Many storage devices are not able to support the opera-
             tions necessary to perform an append operation.  Any attempt to
             append to an archive stored on such a device may damage the
             archive or have other unpredictable results.  Tape drives in par-
             ticular are more likely to not support an append operation.  An
             archive stored in a regular file system file or on a disk device
             will usually support an append operation.

     -B bytes
             Limit the number of bytes written to a single archive volume to
             bytes.  The bytes limit can end with `m', `k', or `b' to specify
             multiplication by 1048576 (1M), 1024 (1K) or 512, respectively.
             A pair of bytes limits can be separated by `x' to indicate a
             product.

             Warning: Only use this option when writing an archive to a device
             which supports an end of file read condition based on last (or
             largest) write offset (such as a regular file or a tape drive).
             The use of this option with a floppy or hard disk is not recom-
             mended.

     -b blocksize
             When writing an archive, block the output at a positive decimal
             integer number of bytes per write to the archive file.  The
             blocksize must be a multiple of 512 bytes with a maximum of 64512
             bytes.  Archive block sizes larger than 32256 bytes violate the
             POSIX standard and will not be portable to all systems.  A
             blocksize can end with `k' or `b' to specify multiplication by
             1024 (1K) or 512, respectively.  A pair of blocksizes can be sep-
             arated by `x' to indicate a product.  A specific archive device
             may impose additional restrictions on the size of blocking it
             will support.  When blocking is not specified, the default
             blocksize is dependent on the specific archive format being used
             (see the -x option).

     -c      Match all file or archive members except those specified by the
             pattern and file operands.

     -D      This option is the same as the -u option, except that the file
             inode change time is checked instead of the file modification
             time.  The file inode change time can be used to select files
             whose inode information (e.g., UID, GID, etc.) is newer than a
             copy of the file in the destination directory.

     -d      Cause files of type directory being copied or archived, or
             archive members of type directory being extracted, to match only
             the directory file or archive member and not the file hierarchy
             rooted at the directory.

     -E limit
             Limit the number of consecutive read faults while trying to read
             a flawed archive to limit.  With a positive limit, pax will at-
             tempt to recover from an archive read error and will continue
             processing starting with the next file stored in the archive.  A
             limit of 0 will cause pax to stop operation after the first read
             error is detected on an archive volume.  A limit of NONE will
             cause pax to attempt to recover from read errors forever.  The
             default limit is a small positive number of retries.

             Warning: Using this option with NONE should be used with extreme
             caution as pax may get stuck in an infinite loop on a very badly
             flawed archive.

     -f archive
             Specify archive as the pathname of the input or output archive,
             overriding the default standard input (for list and read) or
             standard output (for write).  A single archive may span multiple
             files and different archive devices.  When required, pax will
             prompt for the pathname of the file or device of the next volume
             in the archive.

     -G group
             Select a file based on its group name, or when starting with a #,
             a numeric GID.  A `\' can be used to escape the #.  Multiple -G
             options may be supplied and checking stops with the first match.

     -H      Follow only command-line symbolic links while performing a physi-
             cal file system traversal.

     -i      Interactively rename files or archive members.  For each archive
             member matching a pattern operand or each file matching a file
             operand, pax will prompt to /dev/tty giving the name of the file,
             its file mode, and its modification time.  pax will then read a
             line from /dev/tty.  If this line is blank, the file or archive
             member is skipped.  If this line consists of a single period, the
             file or archive member is processed with no modification to its
             name.  Otherwise, its name is replaced with the contents of the
             line.  pax will immediately exit with a non-zero exit status if
             EOF is encountered when reading a response or if /dev/tty cannot
             be opened for reading and writing.

     -j      Use bzip2 to compress (decompress) the archive while writing
             (reading).  The bzip2 utility must be installed separately.  In-
             compatible with -a.

     -k      Do not overwrite existing files.

     -L      Follow all symbolic links to perform a logical file system
             traversal.

     -l      (The lowercase letter ``ell''.) Link files.  In the copy mode (-r
             -w), hard links are made between the source and destination file
             hierarchies whenever possible.

     -n      Select the first archive member that matches each pattern
             operand.  No more than one archive member is matched for each
             pattern.  When members of type directory are matched, the file
             hierarchy rooted at that directory is also matched (unless -d is
             also specified).

     -O      Force the archive to be one volume.  If a volume ends premature-
             ly, pax will not prompt for a new volume.  This option can be
             useful for automated tasks where error recovery cannot be per-
             formed by a human.

     -o options
             Information to modify the algorithm for extracting or writing
             archive files which is specific to the archive format specified
             by -x.  In general, options take the form: name=value.

             The following options are available for the old BSD tar format:

             nodir
             write_opt=nodir
                     When writing archives, omit the storage of directories.

     -P      Do not follow symbolic links, perform a physical file system
             traversal.  This is the default mode.

     -p string
             Specify one or more file characteristic options (privileges).
             The string option-argument is a string specifying file character-
             istics to be retained or discarded on extraction.  The string
             consists of the specification characters a, e, m, o, and p.  Mul-
             tiple characteristics can be concatenated within the same string
             and multiple -p options can be specified.  The meanings of the
             specification characters are as follows:

             a   Do not preserve file access times.  By default, file access
                 times are preserved whenever possible.

             e   ``Preserve everything'', the user ID, group ID, file mode
                 bits, file access time, and file modification time.  This is
                 intended to be used by root, someone with all the appropriate
                 privileges, in order to preserve all aspects of the files as
                 they are recorded in the archive.  The e flag is the sum of
                 the o and p flags.

             m   Do not preserve file modification times.  By default, file
                 modification times are preserved whenever possible.

             o   Preserve the user ID and group ID.

             p   ``Preserve'' the file mode bits.  This is intended to be used
                 by a user with regular privileges who wants to preserve all
                 aspects of the file other than the ownership.  The file times
                 are preserved by default, but two other flags are offered to
                 disable this and use the time of extraction instead.

             In the preceding list, `preserve' indicates that an attribute
             stored in the archive is given to the extracted file, subject to
             the permissions of the invoking process.  Otherwise the attribute
             of the extracted file is determined as part of the normal file
             creation action.  If neither the e nor the o specification char-
             acter is specified, or the user ID and group ID are not preserved
             for any reason, pax will not set the S_ISUID (setuid) and S_ISGID
             (setgid) bits of the file mode.  If the preservation of any of
             these items fails for any reason, pax will write a diagnostic
             message to standard error.  Failure to preserve these items will
             affect the final exit status, but will not cause the extracted
             file to be deleted.  If the file characteristic letters in any of
             the string option-arguments are duplicated or conflict with each
             other, the one(s) given last will take precedence.  For example,
             if -p eme is specified, file modification times are still pre-
             served.

     -r      Read an archive file from standard input and extract the speci-
             fied file operands.  If any intermediate directories are needed
             in order to extract an archive member, these directories will be
             created as if mkdir(2) was called with the bitwise inclusive OR
             of S_IRWXU, S_IRWXG, and S_IRWXO as the mode argument.  When the
             selected archive format supports the specification of linked
             files and these files cannot be linked while the archive is being
             extracted, pax will write a diagnostic message to standard error
             and exit with a non-zero exit status at the completion of opera-
             tion.

     -s replstr
             Modify the archive member names according to the substitution ex-
             pression replstr, using the syntax of the ed(1) utility regular
             expressions.  file or pattern arguments may be given to restrict
             the list of archive members to those specified.

             The format of these regular expressions is:

                   /old/new/[gp]

             As in ed(1), old is a basic regular expression (see re_format(7))
             and new can contain an ampersand (`&'), `\n' (where n is a digit)
             back-references, or subexpression matching.  The old string may
             also contain newline characters.  Any non-null character can be
             used as a delimiter (`/' is shown here).  Multiple -s expressions
             can be specified.  The expressions are applied in the order they
             are specified on the command line, terminating with the first
             successful substitution.

             The optional trailing g continues to apply the substitution ex-
             pression to the pathname substring, which starts with the first
             character following the end of the last successful substitution.
             The first unsuccessful substitution stops the operation of the g
             option.  The optional trailing p will cause the final result of a
             successful substitution to be written to standard error in the
             following format:

                   original-pathname >> new-pathname

             File or archive member names that substitute to the empty string
             are not selected and will be skipped.

     -T range
             Allow files to be selected based on a file modification or inode
             change time falling within the specified time range.  The range
             has the format:

                   [from_date][,to_date][/[c][m]]

             The dates specified by from_date to to_date are inclusive.  If
             only a from_date is supplied, all files with a modification or
             inode change time equal to or younger are selected.  If only a
             to_date is supplied, all files with a modification or inode
             change time equal to or older will be selected.  When the
             from_date is equal to the to_date, only files with a modification
             or inode change time of exactly that time will be selected.

             When pax is in the write or copy mode, the optional trailing
             field [c][m] can be used to determine which file time (inode
             change, file modification or both) are used in the comparison.
             If neither is specified, the default is to use file modification
             time only.  The m specifies the comparison of file modification
             time (the time when the file was last written).  The c specifies
             the comparison of inode change time (the time when the file inode
             was last changed; e.g., a change of owner, group, mode, etc).
             When c and m are both specified, then the modification and inode
             change times are both compared.

             The inode change time comparison is useful in selecting files
             whose attributes were recently changed or selecting files which
             were recently created and had their modification time reset to an
             older time (as what happens when a file is extracted from an
             archive and the modification time is preserved).  Time compar-
             isons using both file times is useful when pax is used to create
             a time based incremental archive (only files that were changed
             during a specified time range will be archived).

             A time range is made up of six different fields and each field
             must contain two digits.  The format is:

                   [[[[[cc]yy]mm]dd]HH]MM[.SS]

             Where cc is the first two digits of the year (the century), yy is
             the last two digits of the year, the first mm is the month (from
             01 to 12), dd is the day of the month (from 01 to 31), HH is the
             hour of the day (from 00 to 23), MM is the minute (from 00 to
             59), and SS is the seconds (from 00 to 59).  The minute field MM
             is required, while the other fields are optional and must be
             added in the following order: HH, dd, mm, yy, cc.

             The SS field may be added independently of the other fields.
             Time ranges are relative to the current time, so -T 1234/cm would
             select all files with a modification or inode change time of
             12:34 PM today or later.  Multiple -T time range can be supplied
             and checking stops with the first match.

     -t      Reset the access times of any file or directory read or accessed
             by pax to be the same as they were before being read or accessed
             by pax.

     -U user
             Select a file based on its user name, or when starting with a #,
             a numeric UID.  A `\' can be used to escape the #.  Multiple -U
             options may be supplied and checking stops with the first match.

     -u      Ignore files that are older (having a less recent file modifica-
             tion time) than a pre-existing file or archive member with the
             same name.  During read, an archive member with the same name as
             a file in the file system will be extracted if the archive member
             is newer than the file.  During write, a file system member with
             the same name as an archive member will be written to the archive
             if it is newer than the archive member.  During copy, the file in
             the destination hierarchy is replaced by the file in the source
             hierarchy or by a link to the file in the source hierarchy if the
             file in the source hierarchy is newer.

     -v      During a list operation, produce a verbose table of contents us-
             ing the format of the ls(1) utility with the -l option.  For
             pathnames representing a hard link to a previous member of the
             archive, the output has the format:

                   ls -l listing == link-name

             For pathnames representing a symbolic link, the output has the
             format:

                   ls -l listing => link-name

             Where ls -l listing is the output format specified by the ls(1)
             utility when used with the -l option.  Otherwise for all the oth-
             er operational modes (read, write, and copy), pathnames are writ-
             ten and flushed to standard error without a trailing newline as
             soon as processing begins on that file or archive member.  The
             trailing newline is not buffered and is written only after the
             file has been read or written.

     -w      Write files to the standard output in the specified archive for-
             mat.  When no file operands are specified, standard input is read
             for a list of pathnames with one per line without any leading or
             trailing <blanks>.

     -X      When traversing the file hierarchy specified by a pathname, do
             not descend into directories that have a different device ID.
             See the st_dev field as described in stat(2) for more information
             about device IDs.

     -x format
             Specify the output archive format, with the default format being
             ustar.  pax currently supports the following formats:

             bcpio    The old binary cpio format.  The default blocksize for
                      this format is 5120 bytes.  This format is not very
                      portable and should not be used when other formats are
                      available.  Inode and device information about a file
                      (used for detecting file hard links by this format),
                      which may be truncated by this format, is detected by
                      pax and is repaired.

             cpio     The extended cpio interchange format specified in the
                      IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') standard.  The default
                      blocksize for this format is 5120 bytes.  Inode and de-
                      vice information about a file (used for detecting file
                      hard links by this format), which may be truncated by
                      this format, is detected by pax and is repaired.

             sv4cpio  The System V release 4 cpio.  The default blocksize for
                      this format is 5120 bytes.  Inode and device information
                      about a file (used for detecting file hard links by this
                      format), which may be truncated by this format, is de-
                      tected by pax and is repaired.

             sv4crc   The System V release 4 cpio with file CRC checksums.
                      The default blocksize for this format is 5120 bytes.
                      Inode and device information about a file (used for de-
                      tecting file hard links by this format), which may be
                      truncated by this format, is detected by pax and is re-
                      paired.

             tar      The old BSD tar format as found in 4.3BSD.  The default
                      blocksize for this format is 10240 bytes.  Pathnames
                      stored by this format must be 100 characters or less in
                      length.  Only regular files, hard links, soft links, and
                      directories will be archived (other file system types
                      are not supported).  For backwards compatibility with
                      even older tar formats, a -o option can be used when
                      writing an archive to omit the storage of directories.
                      This option takes the form:

                            -o write_opt=nodir

             ustar    The extended tar interchange format specified in the
                      IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') standard.  The default
                      blocksize for this format is 10240 bytes.  Filenames
                      stored by this format must be 100 characters or less in
                      length; the total pathname must be 256 characters or
                      less.

             pax will detect and report any file that it is unable to store or
             extract as the result of any specific archive format restric-
             tions.  The individual archive formats may impose additional re-
             strictions on use.  Typical archive format restrictions include
             (but are not limited to): file pathname length, file size, link
             pathname length, and the type of the file.

     -Y      This option is the same as the -D option, except that the inode
             change time is checked using the pathname created after all the
             file name modifications have completed.

     -Z      This option is the same as the -u option, except that the modifi-
             cation time is checked using the pathname created after all the
             file name modifications have completed.

     -z      Use gzip(1) to compress (decompress) the archive while writing
             (reading).  Incompatible with -a.

     The options that operate on the names of files or archive members (-c,-i,
     -j, -n, -s, -u, -v, -D, -G, -T, -U, -Y, and -Z) interact as follows.

     When extracting files during a read operation, archive members are
     `selected', based only on the user specified pattern operands as modified
     by the -c, -n, -u, -D, -G, -T, -U options.  Then any -s and -i options
     will modify in that order, the names of these selected files.  Then the
     -Y and -Z options will be applied based on the final pathname.  Finally,
     the -v option will write the names resulting from these modifications.

     When archiving files during a write operation, or copying files during a
     copy operation, archive members are `selected', based only on the user
     specified pathnames as modified by the -n, -u, -D, -G, -T, and -U options
     (the -D option only applies during a copy operation).  Then any -s and -i
     options will modify in that order, the names of these selected files.
     Then during a copy operation the -Y and the -Z options will be applied
     based on the final pathname.  Finally, the -v option will write the names
     resulting from these modifications.

     When one or both of the -u or -D options are specified along with the -n
     option, a file is not considered selected unless it is newer than the
     file to which it is compared.

ENVIRONMENT
     TMPDIR      Path in which to store temporary files.

EXAMPLES
     Copy the contents of the current directory to the device /dev/rst0:

           $ pax -w -f /dev/rst0 .

     Give the verbose table of contents for an archive stored in filename:

           $ pax -v -f filename

     This sequence of commands will copy the entire olddir directory hierarchy
     to newdir:

           $ mkdir newdir
           $ cd olddir
           $ pax -rw . ../newdir

     Extract files from the archive a.pax.  Files rooted in /usr are extracted
     relative to the current working directory; all other files are extracted
     to their unmodified path.

           $ pax -r -s ',^/usr/,,' -f a.pax

     This can be used to interactively select the files to copy from the cur-
     rent directory to dest_dir:

           $ pax -rw -i . dest_dir

     Extract all files from the archive a.pax which are owned by root with
     group bin and preserve all file permissions:

           $ pax -r -pe -U root -G bin -f a.pax

     Update (and list) only those files in the destination directory /backup
     which are older (less recent inode change or file modification times)
     than files with the same name found in the source file tree home:

           $ pax -r -w -v -Y -Z home /backup

DIAGNOSTICS
     pax will exit with one of the following values:

           0   All files were processed successfully.

           1   An error occurred.

     Whenever pax cannot create a file or a link when reading an archive or
     cannot find a file when writing an archive, or cannot preserve the user
     ID, group ID, or file mode when the -p option is specified, a diagnostic
     message is written to standard error and a non-zero exit status will be
     returned, but processing will continue.  In the case where pax cannot
     create a link to a file, pax will not create a second copy of the file.

     If the extraction of a file from an archive is prematurely terminated by
     a signal or error, pax may have only partially extracted a file the user
     wanted.  Additionally, the file modes of extracted files and directories
     may have incorrect file bits, and the modification and access times may
     be wrong.

     If the creation of an archive is prematurely terminated by a signal or
     error, pax may have only partially created the archive, which may violate
     the specific archive format specification.

     If while doing a copy, pax detects a file is about to overwrite itself,
     the file is not copied, a diagnostic message is written to standard error
     and when pax completes it will exit with a non-zero exit status.

SEE ALSO
     cpio(1), tar(1)

STANDARDS
     The pax utility is compliant with the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (``POSIX'')
     specification.

     The flags [-0BDEGjOPTUYZz], the archive formats bcpio, sv4cpio, sv4crc,
     tar, and the flawed archive handling during list and read operations are
     extensions to that specification.

AUTHORS
     Keith Muller at the University of California, San Diego.

OpenBSD 4.7                     August 16, 2009                             10
