NAME

       patool - portable archive file manager

SYNOPSIS

        patool                                                                   [global-options]
       (list|test|extract|create|diff|search|repack|recompressfP|formats)       [command-options]
       <command-arguments>...

DESCRIPTION

       Various  archive  formats  can  be created, extracted, tested, listed, searched, repacked,
       recompressed and compared by patool. The advantage of patool is its simplicity in handling
       archive files without having to remember a myriad of programs and options.

       The  archive  format is determined by the file(1) program and as a fallback by the archive
       file extension.

       patool supports 7z (.7z), ACE (.ace), ADF (.adf), ALZIP (.alz), APE (.ape), AR  (.a),  ARC
       (.arc), ARJ (.arj), BZIP2 (.bz2), CAB (.cab), COMPRESS (.Z), CPIO (.cpio), DEB (.deb), DMS
       (.dms), FLAC (.flac), GZIP (.gz), ISO (.iso), LRZIP (.lrz), LZH (.lha, .lzh), LZIP  (.lz),
       LZMA  (.lzma), LZOP (.lzo), RPM (.rpm), RAR (.rar), RZIP (.rz), SHN (.shn), TAR (.tar), XZ
       (.xz), ZIP (.zip, .jar), ZOO (.zoo)  and  ZPAQ  (.zpaq)  formats.   It  relies  on  helper
       applications to handle those archive formats (for example bzip2 for BZIP2 archives).

       The  archive  formats  TAR,  ZIP, BZIP2 and GZIP are supported natively and do not require
       helper applications to be installed.

EXAMPLES

         patool extract archive.zip otherarchive.rar
         patool --verbose test dist.tar.gz
         patool list package.deb
         patool --verbose create myfiles.zip file1.txt dir/
         patool diff release1.0.tar.xz release2.0.zip
         patool search "def urlopen" python-3.3.tar.gz
         patool repack linux-2.6.33.tar.gz linux-2.6.33.tar.bz2
         patool recompress images.zip

GLOBAL OPTIONS

       -v, --verbose
              Display more info about  what  patool  does,  and  display  the  output  of  helper
              applications. Can be given multiple times to increase the output even more.

       --non-interactive
              Try  to  prevent  any  interactive  user  input (ie. prompting for passwords or for
              overwriting duplicate files). Use this option with care since overwriting files  or
              ignoring password prompts could lead to unintended consequences.
              This  only  works  for programs that allow preventing user prompts. Currently those
              are arj, 7z and rar.

COMMANDS

       The following rules apply to all commands:

       •   Existing files are never overwritten.

       •   The original archive will never be removed.

       •   Files outside the output directory will never  be  created.  This  relies  on  archive
           program  options  to  prevent  unpacking  of  files  with  an  absolute path name (eg.
           --no-absolute-filenames for cpio(1)).

       The following commands are available.

   extract
       patool extract [--outdir directory] <archive>...

       Extract files from given archives. The original archives will never  be  removed  and  are
       left as is.

       --outdir directory
              Extract to the given output directory. Default is to extract to the current working
              directory.

       If the archive contains exactly one file or directory, the archive contents are  extracted
       directly  to  the  output  directory.   Else  the  files  are extracted in a newly created
       subdirectory of the output directory.  The  new  directory  is  named  after  the  archive
       filename without the extension.
       This  prevents  cluttering  the  output  directory  with a lot of files from the extracted
       archive.

       All extracted files are ensured that they are readable by the current user.

   list
       patool list <archive>...

       List files in archives.

   create
       patool create <archive> <file-or-directory>...

       Create an archive from given files. All of the given files to add to the archive  must  be
       readable  by  the  current user.  The format of the archive to create is determined by the
       archive file extension. If the archive program has options to maximize  file  compression,
       patool uses those options.

   test
       patool test <archive>...

       Test  the  given archives. If the helper application does not support testing, the archive
       contents are listed instead.

   diff
       patool diff <archive1> <archive2>

       Show differences between two archives with the diff(1) program.  The diff options used are
       -urN.

   search
       patool search <pattern> <archive>

       Search  in archive contents for given pattern using the grep(1) program.  The grep options
       used are -r;  additional  options  can  be  supplied  with  the  GREP_OPTIONS  environment
       variable.

   repack
       patool repack <archive> <archive_new>

       Repackage  archive  to  a different format. The target archive format is determined by the
       file extension of archive_new.

   recompress
       patool recompress <archive>

       Recompress archive to a smaller file size. If the  resulting  file  is  not  smaller,  the
       archive is left unchanged.

   formats
       patool formats

       Show all supported archive formats (ie. which helper applications are available).

HELP OPTION

       Specifying the help option displays help for patool itself, or a command.
       For example:
         patool --help - display help for patool
         patool extract --help - display help for the extract command

SHELL ALIASES

       When running under a Unix shell the following aliases can be defined to save some typing:
         alias pl='patool list'
         alias px='patool extract'
         alias pc='patool create'
         alias pd='patool diff'

AUTHOR

       Bastian Kleineidam <bastian.kleineidam@web.de>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2010-2015 Bastian Kleineidam