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, .cb7), ACE (.ace, .cba), 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, .cbr), RZIP (.rz), SHN (.shn), TAR (.tar, .cbt), XZ (.xz), ZIP (.zip, .jar, .cbz),
       ZOO (.zoo) and ZPAQ (.zpaq) archive 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 © 2010-2016 Bastian Kleineidam