BAR - Basic Archiver

BAR is a very basic archiver with TAR-like command line interface and Electron's ASAR-inspired header format. It supports both ASAR format (directory is stored in ASCII JSON), and a related BSAR format (directory is stored in binary JSON). Both formats describe the same data, but BSON is a bit more compact and can be easily traversed in memory, e.g. if just one file needs to be extracted.

BAR is very easy to install; it only needs a C compiler and has no dependency on platform-specific building tools. There is no distributives or packages: just compile the source file with your favorite C compiler, link it with the standard C runtime libraries and be done with it. For some platforms, precompiled binaries are available (please see releases).

Installation

Here's how you can compile BAR on a unix box using GCC:

gcc -o bar [bar].c

Instructions for other compilers are similar (you may use Clang on Linux/Mac or CL on Windows). Please note that CL may issue warnings; we recommend to add -D_CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS for Windows headers (unless you want to hear that fopen is no longer a reasonable way to open files).

The resulting executable has no dependencies (except C runtime) and can be run from any location. If compiled statically, it can be easily moved between systems with the same ABI.

Commmand line interface

BAR adheres to TAR's command line conventions:

bar: BAR (Basic Archiver) 1.00 built on May  9 2023
usage: bar [OPTION]... [FILE/DIR]...
The archiver works with .asar (json header) and .bsar (bson header) archives.

Examples:
  bar -cf arch.bsar foo bar    # Create bsar archive from files foo and bar
  bar -cf arch.asar foo bar    # Create asar archive from files foo and bar
  bar -tvf arch.bsar           # List all files in arch.bsar verbosely
  bar -xf arch.bsar foo bar    # Extract files foo and bar from arch.bsar
  bar -xf arch.bsar            # Extract all files from arch.bsar

If a long option shows an argument as mandatory, then it is mandatory
for the equivalent short option also.  Similarly for optional arguments.

Main operation mode:
  -c, --create                 Create a new archive
  -t, --list                   List the contents of an archive
  -x, --extract                Extract files from an archive

Operation modifiers:
  -f, --file=FILE              Use archive FILE (required in all modes)
  -k, --keep-old-files         Don't overwrite existing files when extracting
  -C, --directory=DIR          Use directory DIR for extracted files
  -O, --to-stdout              Extract files to standard output
  -X, --exclude-from=FILE      Exclude files via globbing patterns in FILE
  --exclude="PATTERN"          Exclude files, given as a globbing PATTERN
  --unpack="PATTERN"           Exclude files, but keep their info in archive
  --include-from=FILE          List/extract files via globbing patterns in FILE
  --include="PATTERN"          List/extract files, given as a globbing PATTERN
  --integrity=SHA256           Calculate or check file integrity info

Archive format selection:
  -o, --format=asar            Create asar archive even if extension is not .asar
  --format=bsar                Create bsar archive even if extension is .asar

File name matching options:
   --anchored                  Patterns match path
   --no-anchored               Patterns match file/directory name
   --wildcards                 Patterns are wildcards
   --no-wildcards              Patterns match verbatim

Informative output:
  -v, --verbose                Increase output verbosity
  -q, --quiet                  Suppress logging
  -h, --help                   Print this help, then exit

Note: when creating archives (-c), only the name of each argument file/dir
is stored in the archive, not a complete path to the argument file/dir.

Family

Please see BAZ repository for a bigger archiver with support for compression.