PAX

Starts the Portable Archive Interchange (Pax) utility.

Pax is a POSIX program and path names used as arguments must be specified in POSIX format. Use "//C/Users/Default" instead of "C:\USERS\DEFAULT."

Combinations of the -r and -w command-line arguments specify whether pax will read, write or list the contents of the specified archive, or move the specified files to another directory.

PAX [-r] [-c] [-i] [-m] [-o] [-p] [-u] [-v] [-y] [-f archive] [-s replstr] [-t device] [pattern...]

PAX -w [-a] [-d] [-i] [-m] [-u] [-v] [-y] [-b blocking] [-f archive] [-s replstr] [-t device] [-x format] [pathname...]

PAX -rw [-i] [-l] [-m] [-o] [-p] [-u] [-v] [-y] [-s replstr] [pathname...] directory

directory (NT3.5)

Contains the destination directory path for copies when both the -r and -w options are specified. The directory must exist and be writable before the copy or an error results.

pathname... (NT3.5)

Specifies a file whose contents are used instead of the files named on the standard input. When a directory is named, all of its files and subdirectories are copied as well.

pattern... (NT3.5)

A pattern is given using wildcards. The default is all files.

-a (NT3.5)

Appends the files specified by pathname to the specified archive.

-b blocking (NT3.5)

Blocks the output at blocking bytes per write to the archive file:

• b 512
• k 1024
• m 1,048,576 (1 MB)

If not specified, blocking is automatically determined on input and is ignored for -rw.

-c (NT3.5)

Complements the match sense of the pattern operands.

-d (NT3.5)

Indicates that intermediate directories not explicitly listed in the archive are not created. This option is ignored unless the -r option is specified.

-f archive (NT3.5)

The archive option specifies the path of the input or output archive, overriding the default of standard input for -r or standard output for -w.

Only the last of multiple -f options take effect.

-i (NT3.5)

Interactively renames files. Substitutions specified by -s options are performed before requesting the new file name from the user. A file is skipped if an empty line is entered and the pax command exits with an exit status of zero if EOF is encountered. Cannot be used with -y

-l (NT3.5)

Indicates that files are linked rather than copied when possible.

-m (NT3.5)

Indicates that file modification times are not retained.

-n (NT3.5)

When -r is specified, but -w is not, the pattern arguments are treated as ordinary file names. Only the first occurrence of each of these files in the input archive is read. The pax command exits with a zero exit status after all files in the list have been read. If one or more files in the list is not found, pax writes a diagnostic to standard error for each of the files and exits with a nonzero exit status. The file names are compared before any of the -i, -s, or -y options are applied.

-o (NT3.5)

Restores file ownership as specified in the archive. The invoking process must have appropriate privileges to accomplish this.

-p (NT3.5)

Preserves the access time of the input files after they have been copied.

-r (NT3.5)

Reads an archive file from the standard input. Only files with names that match any of the pattern operands are selected for extraction. The selected files are conditionally created and copied relative to the current tree, subject to the other switches. By default, the owner and group of selected files will be that of the invoking process, and the permissions and modification times will be the same as those in the archive. The supported archive formats are automatically detected on input. The default output format is ustar, but may be overridden by -x format.

-rw (NT3.5)

Reads the files and directories named in the pathname operands and copies them to the destination directory. A directory pathname operand refers to the files and (recursively) subdirectories of that directory. If no pathname operands are given, the standard input is read to get a list of paths to copy, one path per line. In this case, only those paths appearing on the standard input are copied. The directory named by the directory operand must exist and have the proper permissions before the copy can occur.

-s replstr (NT3.5)

Modifies file names according to the substitution expression using the syntax of ed(1) as shown:

      -s /old/new/[gp]

Any non-null character may be used as a delimiter (a forward slash is used here as an example). Multiple -s expressions may be specified; the expressions are applied in the order specified terminating with the first successful substitution.

The optional trailing p causes successful mappings to be listed on standard error.

The optional trailing g causes the old expression to be replaced each time it occurs in the source string.

Files that substitute to an empty string are ignored both on input and output.

-t device (NT3.5)

The device option argument is an implementation-defined identifier that names the input or output archive device, overriding the default of standard input for -r and standard output for -w.

Only the last of multiple -t options take effect.

-u (NT3.5)

Copies each file only if it is newer than a preexisting file with the same name. This implies -a.

-v (NT3.5)

Lists file names as they are encountered. Produces a verbose table of contents listing on the standard output when both -r and -w are omitted, otherwise the file names are printed to standard error as they are encountered in the archive.

-w (NT3.5)

Writes the files and directories specified by the pathname operands to the standard output together with the path and status information prescribed by the archive format used. A directory pathname operand refers to the files and (recursively) subdirectories of that directory. If no pathname operands are given, then the standard input is read to get a list of paths to copy, one path per line. In this case, only those paths appearing on the standard input are copied.

-x format (NT3.5)

Specifies the output archive format. The input format, which must be one of the following, is automatically determined when the -r option is used. The formats supported:

• cpio The extended CPIO interchange format specified in Extended CPIO Format in IEEE Std. 1003.1-1988.
• ustar The extended TAR interchange format specified in Extended TAR Format in IEEE Std. 1003.1-1988 (default archive format).

-y (NT3.5)

Prompts for the disposition of each file. Substitutions specified by -s options are performed before prompting the user for disposition. EOF or an input line starting with the character q causes pax to exit. Otherwise, an input line starting with anything other than y causes the file to be ignored. This option cannot be used in conjunction with the -i option.

none.

none.

none.

• -i
  • 0 EOF encountered
• -n
  • 0 all files found
  • non-0 one or more files not found

External

DOS

none

Windows

none

Windows NT

NT3.5 NT3.51 NT4 NT2000