--- name: "scpio" section: "1" platform: "linux" package: "star" version: "1.5a67-1" release: "Debian 4.0 (Etch)" platforms: ["linux"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/scpio" --- # scpio(1) copy file archives in and out (LEGACY) ## NAME scpio - copy file archives in and out (LEGACY) ## SYNOPSIS **scpio** \[ *other options* \] -o\[aBcv\]\ **scpio** \[ *other options* \] -i\[Bcdmruvf\] \[ *pattern ...* \]\ **scpio** \[ *other options* \] -it\[Bcvf\] \[ *pattern ...* \]\ **scpio** \[ *other options* \] -p\[adlmuv\] *directory* ## DESCRIPTION The **scpio** utility, depending on the options used: - **•** copies files to an archive file - **•** extracts files from an archive file - **•** lists files from an archive file - **•** copies files from one directory tree to another. ## OPTIONS The **scpio** utility supports the XBD specification Utility Syntax Guidelines. The **cpio** standard does not allow the option modifiers to be presented as separate arguments from the option letters. The **scpio** implementation allows option modifiers to be presented as separate arguments from the option letters. When writing portable shell scripts do never make use of this feature. The following options are supported: - **-o** (Copy Out.) Read the standard input to obtain a list of pathnames and copy those files onto the standard output together with pathname and status information. Output is padded to a 512-byte boundary. - **-i** (Copy In.) Extract files from the standard input, which is assumed to be the product of a previous **scpio -o**. Only files with names that match *patterns* are selected. The extracted files are conditionally created and copied into the current directory tree based upon the options described below. The permissions of the files will be those of the previous **scpio -o**. The owner and group of the files will be that of the current user unless the user has appropriate privileges, which causes **scpio** to retain the owner and group of the files of the previous **scpio -o**. If the archive being read does not match the modifier specified, **scpio** may consider this to be an error and exit or may recognise the archive and continue processing. Only a user with appropriate privileges can extract block special or character special files from an archive. - **-it** (List.) List files from the archive. This is a sub mode of the copy in mode, no files are created in list mode. - **-p** (Pass.) Read the standard input to obtain a list of pathnames of files that are conditionally created and copied into the destination directory tree based upon the option modifiers described below. The following option modifiers can be appended in any sequence to the **-o**, **-i** or **-p** options: - **a** Reset access times of input files after they have been copied. (When option **l** (see below) is also specified, the access times of the linked files are not reset.) - **B** Block input/output 5120 bytes to the record (does not apply to the **-p** option; meaningful only with data directed to or from character special files). - **d** Create directories as needed. - **c** Write or read header information in character form for portability. Note that the Open Group standard does not specify the archive format that should be used with the **c** option. For this reason it is questionable wether the **c** option increases portability in general. The archive format used by **scpio** with the **c** option is the format from the **-H asc** option. It gives best **cpio** compatibility when transferring files to SVR4-based systems (except that the file size is limited to 2 gigabytes). When transferring files in **cpio** archives to unknown operating systems, it is unwise to use the **c** option. - **r** Interactively rename files. For each archive member matching *pattern* operand, a prompt will be written to the file **/dev/tty**. The prompt will contain the name of the archive member, but the format is otherwise unspecified. A line will then be read from **/dev/tty**. If this line is blank, the archive member will be skipped. If this line consists of a single period, the archive member will be processed with no modification to its name. Otherwise, its name will be replaced with the contents of the line. The **scpio** utility will immediately exit with a non-zero exit status if end-of-file is encountered when reading a response, or if **/dev/tty** cannot be opened for reading and writing. - **t** Write a table of contents of the input. No files are created. - **u** Copy unconditionally (normally, an older file will not replace a newer file with the same name). - **v** Verbose: print the names of the affected files. With the **t** option, provides a detailed listing. - **l** Whenever possible, link files rather than copying them. Usable only with the **-p** option. The **l** option modifier is not yet supported by **scpio**. - **m** Retain previous file modification time. This option is ineffective on directories that are being copied. - **f** Copy in all files except those in *patterns*. The following *other options* are implemented as **SVr4 compliant** extension to the Open Group standard: - **-6** Extract **UNIX System Sixth Edition** cpio archives. This option is not valid in archive create mode, it is mutually exclusive with **-c**, **-H**, and **artype=**. As is is unclear how **UNIX System Sixth Edition** cpio archives look like, this option is currently unsupported. - **-@** Include extended file attributes in the archive. This option is currently unsupported. - **-A** Append files to an existing archive. The **-A** option only works together with the **-O** option. See **star -r** for more information. - **-b** Reverses the order of the bytes within each word. It is unclear what a *word* is supposed to be. This option is unsupported but not needed as **scpio** includes automatic byte order recognition. - **-C** *#* Sets (input/output) archive block size to # bytes. - **-E** *name* Read filenames for store/create/list command from *name*. The file *name* must contain a list of filenames, each on a separate line. - **-H** *header* Set the archive type to *header*. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **-I** *nm* Use *nm* as archive file name instead of stdin. - **-k** Try to skip corrupt archive headers. - **-L** Follow symbolic links as if they were files. - **-M** *message* Define a message that is uses when switching media. This option is currently unsupported. - **-O** *nm* Use *nm* as archive file name instead of stdout. - **-P** Handle **Access Control List** (ACL) information in create and extract mode. See **star -acl** for more information. - **-R** *nm* Reassign ownership and group for all files based on *nm*. This option is currently unsupported. - **-s** Reverses the order of the bytes within each word. It is unclear what a *word* is supposed to be. This option is unsupported but not needed as **scpio** includes automatic byte order recognition. - **-S** Reverses the order of the halfwords within each word. It is unclear what a *word* is supposed to be. This option is unsupported but not needed as **scpio** includes automatic byte order recognition. - **-V** Special verbose. Print a dot for each file that is read or written. This option is currently unsupported. The following *other options* are implemented as **star** extension to the Open Group standard: - **-help** Prints a summary of the most important options for [**scpio**(1)](/scpio/1.md) and exits. - **-xhelp** Prints a summary of the less important options for [**scpio**(1)](/scpio/1.md) and exits. - **-version** Prints the **scpio** version number string and exists. - **-/** Don't strip leading slashes from file names when extracting an archive. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **..** Don't skip files that contain /../ in the name. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **-acl** Handle **Access Control List** (ACL) information in create and extract mode. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **artype=***header* Set the archive type to *header*. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **-bz** Run the input or output through a **bzip2** pipe - see option **-z** below. As the **-bz** the **-z** options are non standard, it makes sense to omit **-bz** options the inside shell scripts. If you are going to extract a compressed archive that is located inside a plain file, **scpio** will auto detect compression and choose the right decompression option to extract. - **bs=***#* Set block size to #. You may use the same method as in [**dd**(1)](/dd/1.md) and [**sdd**(1)](/sdd/1.md). See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **-fifostats** Print fifo statistics at the end of a **scpio** run when the fifo has been in effect. - **fs=***#* Set fifo size to #. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **-no-fifo** Do not use a fifo to optimize data flow from/to tape. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **-no-fsync** Do not call [**fsync**(2)](/fsync/2.md) for each file that has been extracted from the archive. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **-no-statistics** Do not print statistic messages at the end of a **scpio** run. - **-secure-links** Do not extract hard links or symbolic links if the link name (the target of the link) starts with a slash (/) or if /../ is contained in the link name. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **-numeric** Use the numeric user/group fields in the listing rather than the default. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **-time** Print timing info. See [**star**(1)](/star/1.md) for more information. - **-xfflags** Store and extract extended file flags as found on BSD and Linux systems. See **star -acl** for more information. - **-z** Run the input or output through a **gzip** pipe - see option **-bz** above. As the **-bz** the **-z** options are non standard, it makes sense to omit **-bz** options the inside shell scripts. If you are going to extract a compressed archive that is located inside a plain file, **scpio** will auto detect compression and choose the right decompression option to extract. ## OPERANDS The following operands are supported: - *directory* A pathname of an existing directory to be used as the target of **scpio -p**. - *pattern* Expressions making use of a pattern-matching notation similar to that used by the shell for filename pattern matching, and similar to regular expressions. The following metacharacters are defined: - **\*** Matches any string, including the empty string. - **?** Matches any single character. - **\[...\]** Matches any one of the enclosed characters. A pair of characters separated by \`-' matches any symbol between the pair (inclusive), as defined by the system default collating sequence. If the first character following the opening \`\[' is a \`!', the results are unspecified. In *pattern*, the special characters "?", "\*" and "\[" also match the "/" character. Multiple cases of *pattern* can be specified and if no *pattern* is specified, the default for *pattern* is "\*" (that is, select all files). Note that **scpio** does not use [**fnmatch**(3)](/fnmatch/3.md) based pattern matching as documented above, it rather uses the pattern matcher documented in [**match**(1)](/match/1.md). ## STDIN When the **-o** or **-p** options are used, the standard input is a text file containing a list of pathnames, one per line, to be copied. When the **-i** option is used, the standard input is an archive file formatted in any way that is understood by the archive handling engine (see **-H help** option for a complete list). ## INPUT FILES The files identified by the pathnames in the standard input are of any type. When the **-r** option is used, the file **/dev/tty** is used to write prompts and read responses. ## ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS Default. ## STDOUT When the **-o** option is used, the standard output is an archive file formatted as specified by **pax** with the **-x cpio** option. For better compatibility with SVR4-based systems that do not implement the **cpio** format correctly, **scpio** by default limits the length of file names to 256 bytes. Use **scpio -H cpio** to explicitly switch to the full POSIX 1003.1-1988 **cpio** archive format. Otherwise, the standard output contains commentary in an unspecified format concerning the progress of the execution. ## STDERR When the **-o** option is not used, the standard error contains commentary in an unspecified format concerning the progress of the execution. Otherwise, the standard error is used only for diagnostic messages. ## OUTPUT FILES Output files are created, as specified by the archive, when the **-i** or **-p** options are used. ## EXTENDED DESCRIPTION None. ## EXIT STATUS The following exit values are returned: - **0** Successful completion. - **\>0** An error occurred. ## CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS If a file or directory cannot be created or overwritten, **scpio** continues with the next file in the archive or file to be added to the archive. ## APPLICATION USAGE Archives created by **scpio** are portable between XSI-conformant systems provided the same procedures are used. The shell metacharacter notation is not fully compatible with that used by the shell and the **pax** utility. Not all systems support the use of the negation character \[! ...\] in **cpio** patterns. Portable applications must avoid the use of this notation. For portable communication of data between XSI-conformant systems, it is recommended that only characters defined in the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard International Reference Version (equivalent to ASCII) 7-bit range of characters be used and that only characters defined in the Portable Filename Character Set be used for naming files. This recommendation is given because XSI-conformant systems support diverse codesets and run in various geographical areas and there is no single, well-established codeset that incorporates all of the characters of the languages of the various geographical areas. The **cpio** archive format only supports file sizes up to 8 gigabytes. Applications should migrate to the **pax** archive format which is the POSIX 1003.1-2001 standard archive format and based on an extended **tar** format. ## FUTURE DIRECTIONS None. ## EXAMPLES 1\. Copy the contents of a directory onto an archive: **ls \| scpio -o \>../cpio.out** 2\. Duplicate a directory hierarchy: **cd olddir**\ **find . -depth -print \| scpio -pd ../newdir** ## ENVIRONMENT The following environment variables may affect the execution of **scpio**: - **TZ** Determine the timezone used with date and time strings. ## SEE ALSO [**ar**(1)](/ar/1.md), [**find**(1)](/find/1.md), [**sfind**(1)](/sfind/1.md), [**ls**(1)](/ls/1.md), [**match**(1)](/match/1.md), [**pax**(1)](/pax/1.md), [**spax**(1)](/spax/1.md), [**tar**(1)](/tar/1.md), [**star**(1)](/star/1.md). ## DIAGNOSTICS ## NOTES The default block size for **cpio** is 512 bytes, this slows down write speed. Use **-B**, **-C**, or **bs=** to set a different block size. The Open Group, have given us permission to reprint portions of their documentation. In the following statement, the phrase \`\`this text'' refers to portions of the system documentation. Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form in the **scpio** manual, from The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 5, Copyright (C) 1997 by The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between these versions and the original specification, the original The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at **http://www.opengroup.org/unix/single\_unix\_specification\_v2**. ## BUGS ## AUTHOR ``` Joerg Schilling Seestr. 110 D-13353 Berlin Germany ``` Mail bugs and suggestions to: **schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de** or **js@cs.tu-berlin.de** or **joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de**