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STREAMARCHIVE(5L) Schily's USER COMMANDS STREAMARCHIVE(5L)
NAME streamarchive - StreamArchive file format
DESCRIPTION StreamArchive typed archives are a series of keyword and value records that are similar to content of the POSIX.1-2001 extended headers called TAR (PAX) HEADERs, based on a proposal from Sun Microsystems from 1997.
A new file always begins with the path keyword and after the mandatory size keyword, file content may follow. Each file record is terminated by a status keyword.
An archive begins with an archtype=StreamArchive record and ends with a status=EOF record.
The archive meta data do not add non-printable characters. If the file names in the archive are only made from ASCII characters and if the archive only contains files with ASCII content, the whole archive contains only ASCII content.
HEADER FORMAT The header records use the following format:
"%d %s=%s\n", <length>, <keyword>, <value>
Each record starts with a a decimal length field. The length includes the total size of a record including the length field itself and the trailing new line.
The keyword may not include an equal sign. All keywords beginning with upper case letters are reserved for local extensions.
If the value field is of zero length, it deletes any header field of the same name that is in effect from the same extended header or from a previous global header.
Null characters do not delimit any value. The data used for value is only limited by its implicit length.
HEADER KEYWORDS All numerical values are represented as decimal strings. All texts are represented as UTF-8 or an unspecified binary format (see hdrcharset keyword) that is expected to be understood by the receiving system:
atime The time from st_atime in sub second granularity. A nanosecond granularity is currently supported.
charset The name of the character set used to encode the data in the following file(s).
The following values are supported for charset:
ISO-IR 646 1990 ISO/IEC 646:1990
ISO-IR 8859 1 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998

ISO-IR 8859 6 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-6:1998
ISO-IR 8859 7 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-7:1998
ISO-IR 8859 8 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-8:1998
ISO-IR 8859 9 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-9:1998
ISO-IR 8859 10 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-10:1998
ISO-IR 8859 11 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-11:1998
ISO-IR 8859 12 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-12:1998
ISO-IR 8859 13 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-13:1998
ISO-IR 8859 14 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-14:1998
ISO-IR 8859 15 1998 ISO/IEC 8859-15:1998
ISO-IR 10646 2000 ISO/IEC 10646:2000
ISO-IR 10646 2000 UTF-8 ISO/IEC 10646, UTF-8 encoding
BINARY None
comment Any number of characters that should be treated as comment. The comment is ignored.
ctime The time from st_ctime in sub second granularity. A nanosecond granularity is currently supported.
dev The device id from st_dev of the file as decimal number.
The value is a signed int. An implementation should be able to handle at least 64 bit values. Note that the value is signed because POSIX does not specify more than the type should be an int.
devmajor The device major number of the file if it is a character or block special file. The argument is a decimal number.
The value is a signed int. An implementation should be able to handle at least 64 bit values. Note that the value is signed because POSIX does not specify more than the type should be an int.
devminor The device minor number of the file if it is a character or block special file. The argument is a decimal number.
The value is a signed int. An implementation should be able to handle at least 64 bit values. Note that the value is signed because POSIX does not specify more than the type should be an int.

regular A regular file.
contiguous A contiguous file. On operating systems or file systems that don't support this file type, it is handled like a regular file.
symlink A symbolic link to any file type.
directory A directory.
character special A character special file.
block special A block special file.
fifo A named pipe.
socket A UNIX domain socket.
mpx character special A multiplexed character special file.
mpx block special A multiplexed block special file.
XENIX nsem A XENIX named semaphore.
XENIX nshd XENIX shared data.
door A Solaris door.
eventcount A UNOS event count.
whiteout A BSD whiteout directory entry.
sparse A sparse regular file.
volheader A volume header.
unknown/bad Any other unknown file type. This should never happen.
arfiletype The following additional file types are used in arfiletype:
hardlink A hard link to any file type.

fsdevmajor The device major number of the file (from st_dev) as a decimal number.
The value is a signed int. An implementation should be able to handle at least 64 bit values. Note that the value is signed because POSIX does not specify more than the type should be an int.
fsdevminor The device minor number of the file (from st_dev). as a decimal
gid The group ID of the group that owns the file. The argument is a decimal number.
gname The group name of the following file(s) coded in UTF-8 or (if the hdrcharset keyword is present) coded to fit the charset value.
hdrcharset The name of the character set used to encode the data for the gname, linkpath, path and uname fields in the POSIX.1-2001 extended header records.
The following values are supported for hdrcharset:
ISO-IR 10646 2000 UTF-8 ISO/IEC 10646, UTF-8 encoding
BINARY None
ino The inode number from st_ino of the file as decimal number.
The value is an unsigned int. An implementation should be able to handle at least 64 bit unsigned values.
linkpath The name of the linkpath coded in UTF-8 or (if the hdrcharset keyword is present) coded to fit the charset value.
mtime The time from st_mtime in sub second granularity. A nanosecond granularity is currently supported.
nlink The link count of the file as decimal number.
The value is an unsigned int. An implementation should be able to handle at least 32 bit unsigned values.
path The name of the path coded in UTF-8 or (if the hdrcharset keyword is present) coded to fit the charset value.
size The size of the file as decimal number. The size keyword may not refer to the real file size but is related to the size if the file in the archive.
status The status keyword appears after file data and is used to signal whether the last file has been transferred correctly. The first status keyword that appears after file data, has a number as parameter. If this number is equal to 0, then the file data has been successfully transferred into the archive. If this number is non-zero, it is the errno from the creating system.
In addition, each archive is terminated by a status keyword with the argument EOF to singal the end of the archive.
uid The uid ID of the group that owns the file. The argument is a decimal number.
uname The user name of the following file(s) coded in UTF-8 or (if the hdrcharset keyword is present) coded to fit the charset value.
VENDOR.keyword
BUGS None currently known.
Mail bugs and suggestions to schilytools@mlists.in-berlin.de or open a ticket at https://codeberg.org/schilytools/schilytools/issues.
The mailing list archive may be found at:
https://mlists.in-berlin.de/mailman/listinfo/schilytools-mlists.in-berlin.de.

AUTHORS Joerg Schilling and the schilytools project authors.
Joerg Schilling 2022/10/06 STREAMARCHIVE(5L)