NAME

       nspark - unpack Archimedes archives

SYNOPSIS

       nspark [ options ] archive [ file ...  ]

DESCRIPTION

       Nspark  can unpack the specified Archimedes-format archive, list its contents or tests its
       integrity.

       Nspark's main features are:

       o Supports all archive methods used by !Spark 1 and 2.  The  old  version  didn't  support
       "Squashing" and used to handle "Compressed" archives by using the UNIX uncompress program.
       The new version supports both these and has them  built-in,  allowing  easier  porting  to
       other OS's.

       o Supports ArcFS format archives.

       o  Supports  Cyclic  Redundancy  Checking  (CRC).  The  integrity of an archive can now be
       checked without having to unarchive it.

       o Supports verbose option to allow archive file details  to  be  displayed  (time/date  or
       exec/load address, size, type).

       o  Supports  selective file unarchiving, so the whole archive needn't be unarchived if not
       all the files are wanted).

       o Supports user-prompting before overwriting a file,  allowing  the  user  to  either  (1)
       overwrite  the  file,  (2)  overwrite all the files, (3) unarchive the file to a different
       name, or (4) not to unarchive the file at all.

       o Supports file-stamping so the date and time of the file, when  unarchived,  matches  the
       date  and  time  it was archived (not 4.2BSD or SysV.2 as these systems lack vital library
       functions).

       I have not included support for creating !Spark archives, and I am not really  sure  if  I
       need to as: (1) !Spark for RISC OS is cheap (#5.99 from David Pilling), (2) !SparkPlug can
       unpack archives created with zip (which is available in source  form  for  UNIX,  VMS  and
       MSDOS), and (3) it's a lot of work. Let me know what you think.

       Options:

       -x        Extract the given file, or all files if none are specified.

       -u        Equivalent to -x.

       -t        Test  archive  integrity  by simulating extraction and checking the CRCs (Cyclic
                 Redundancy Checks).

       -l        List archive contents.

       -q        Quiet.  Displays less information when listing, testing or extracting.

       -f        Force file overwrite if a file already exists with the  same  name  as  the  one
                 being  extracted.  If  not  using  -f  then you are prompted whether you want to
                 overwrite the original, skip this file, give it a different name,  or  overwrite
                 this and all others that already exist.

       -s        No filestamp. Does not set the timestamp when extracting files.

       -v        Verbose.  Gives full details when listing or extracting archives.

       -p<pass>  Password.  Specifies the password used to garble the archive.

       -R        Retry  if  archive is corrupt.  If a bad header is found then nspark will search
                 the archive until another header if found, rather than giving up.

       -L<name>  Set name of log file to name.

       -T        Append file type to name, in the same way as Tar or NFS.  For example Text files
                 (filetype &FFF) have ,fff appended when extracted.

       -C        Create  lowercase  filenames.  Useful on machines where the case of filenames is
                 significant (eg. UNIX),  this  option  forces  all  extracted  filenames  to  be
                 lowercase.

       -V        Display version number.

BUGS

       The DOS version does not time/date stamp directories.

NOTES

       Nspark  is  in  the  public  domain.   It  is currently being maintained by James Woodcock
       (james_woodcock@yahoo.co.uk).

SEE ALSO

       arcfs(5), spark(5).

AUTHOR

       Andy Duplain, BT Customer Systems, Brighton, UK.  (duplain@btcs.bt.co.uk)

CONTRIBUTORS

       Improvements   from   version   1.5,   including   ArcFS   support,   by   Andrew   Brooks
       (arb@compl.ancs.ac.uk).

       Manual pages originally supplied by Duncan (m91dps@ecs.oxford.ac.uk).

       Suggestions for improvement by Tom Tromey (tromey@busco.lanl.gov).

       Windows NT support by Alun Jones (auj@aber.ac.uk).

       Previously maintained by arb (arb@comp.lancs.ac.uk).