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Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2009 01:20:50 -0800
From: Tim Kientzle <kientzle@freebsd.org>
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To: "Sean C. Farley" <scf@freebsd.org>
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Cc: Pegasus Mc Cleaft <ken@mthelicon.com>, freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Alternatives to gcc (was Re: gcc 4.3: when will it become
	standardcompiler?)
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Sean C. Farley wrote:
> 
> For an archiver, what about tar (bsdtar)?  tar tf /usr/lib/libc.a works 
> for me.  :)  Actually, there is some development[1] to replace those 
> utilities with BSD-licensed versions.  ar has already been replaced in 
> HEAD.

Kai Wang added "ar" format to libarchive, so tar and cpio
in -CURRENT can both read and write ar archives.
But that doesn't mean that tar can serve as a
replacement for ar.  The "ar" utility does have a
few tricks.  ;-)

Kai and I did at one time discuss the feasability
of using tar or cpio format as a library archive
format.  It does have a certain appeal (the "ar"
format is fairly gruesome, especially the
Gnu/SysV long filename extension) but is probably
not worth the effort.

Tim