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).

USER COMMANDS                                      2021-03-05                                          NSPARK(1)