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lha(1)			    General Commands Manual			lha(1)

NAME
       lha - compression tool for .lzh archive files.

SYNOPSIS
       lha [-]{lvtxep[q{num}][finv]}[w=<dir>] archive_file [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
       lha is a	tool for extracting .lzh archive files.	It also	supports vari-
       ants of the .lzh	archive, such as .lzs and .pma.

       This version of the lha tool is part of Lhasa, a	free implementation of
       the .lzh	format.

COMMAND	SYNTAX
       The lha tool has	an unusual command syntax, compared to most other Unix
       commands.  The  first parameter to the program specifies	the command to
       perform and all additional options. The second parameter	specifies  the
       path  to	 the  archive  file to operate on. Following this is a list of
       wildcard	patterns to match against the filenames	of the archived	files.

       The first character of the command parameter specifies the  command  to
       perform,	which is one of	the following:

       -l     List contents of the specified archive.

       -v     Verbosely	list contents of the specified archive.

       -t     Test the integrity of the	specified archive: decompress its con-
	      tents and	check the CRC.

       -e or -x
	      Extract  archive.	Files are extracted to the current working di-
	      rectory unless the 'w' option is specified.

       -p     Extract archive, sending decompressed  files  to	stdout	rather
	      than  writing  them  to  the filesystem as actual	files. This is
	      useful when used as part of a shell pipeline.

OPTIONS
       The remainder of	the command parameter is used  to  specify  additional
       options:

       q[012] Quiet mode. Higher numbers suppress more output. Level 0 is nor-
	      mal  operation.  If  no  number  is  specified, full suppression
	      (level 2)	is used. The quiet option  also	 turns	on  the	 force
	      overwrite	option ('f').

       f      Force overwrite of existing files: do not	prompt.

       i      Ignore  paths  of	 archived files: extract all archived files to
	      the same directory, ignoring subdirectories.

       n      Do not perform any actual	operations: instead, perform a dry run
	      of the requested operation and describe  what  would  have  been
	      done on standard output.

       v      Verbose mode: causes extra information to	be written to standard
	      output.

       w=dir  Specify destination directory for	extracting files. This must be
	      the last option of the first parameter.

COMPRESSION FORMATS
       The  following  gives  some  basic description of the various different
       supported compression formats (as listed	when using  the	 list  command
       documented  above).   All  formats are variants on the LZSS compression
       algorithm.

       -lz4-  Uncompressed (stored) data, as used by the original  LArc	 tool.
	      This is not related to the LZ4 compression algorithm of the same
	      name.

       -lz5-, -lzs-
	      Compression  formats  introduced	with  the  original LArc tool.
	      -lzs- uses a 2KiB	sliding	window while -lz5- uses	a 4KiB window.

       -lhd-  Directory	entry. No data is stored, only headers.

       -lh0-  Uncompressed (stored) data, as used in LHarc and LHa.

       -lh1-  Compression algorithm introduced with LHarc. This	 uses  a  4KiB
	      sliding window with dynamic Huffman encoding.

       -lh4-, -lh5-, -lh6-, -lh7-
	      New algorithm introduced with LHa	(aka LHarc v2.0). The original
	      versions	(-lh4-	and  -lh5-) used 8KiB and 16KiB	sliding	window
	      sizes, respectively.  Later  versions  introduced	 new  variants
	      with larger window sizes:	-lh6- (64KiB) and -lh7-	(128KiB).

       -lhx-  Variant	on   the  -lh4-	 format	 listed	 above	introduced  by
	      UNLHA32.dll that extends the window size to 1MiB.

       -lk7-  Variant on the -lh4- format listed above that was	introduced  by
	      the  LHark  tool	(a  fork of LHa). This is actually named -lh7-
	      within the archive files,	but Lhasa  renames  it	internally  to
	      avoid clashing with the other algorithm of the same name.	Uses a
	      128KiB  sliding window, with some	minor improvement to the algo-
	      rithm.

       -pm0-  Uncompressed (stored) data, as used by the PMarc tool.

       -pm1-  Algorithm	used by	version	1 of the PMarc tool.

       -pm2-  Algorithm	used by	version	2 of the PMarc tool.

UNSUPPORTED FORMATS
       The following formats are not currently supported by Lhasa (but	possi-
       bly will	be in the future):

       -lh2-, -lh3-
	      These formats can	be decompressed	by LHa v2.0 but	the tool could
	      not  actually  generate archives with these formats; they	appear
	      to have only been	supported in beta versions before the v2.0 re-
	      lease. As	a result, few if any examples exist in the wild.

       -lh8-, -lh9-, -lha-, -lhb-, -lhc-, -lhe-
	      Extensions of the	-lh4- format to	even larger window sizes.

       -pc1-  Format generated by the PopCom! compression utility for CP/M.

       If you encounter	examples of these in the wild, please get in touch.

EXAMPLES
       Here are	some examples for how to invoke	the program:

       lha -v foobar.lzs
	      List the contents	of the file foobar.lzs (producing verbose out-
	      put).

       lha -xf foobar.exe
	      Extract the contents of a	 self-extracting  archive  file	 named
	      foobar.exe  to the current directory, overwriting	existing files
	      with the same names if they exist.

       lha -xqw=/tmp foobar.lzh
	      Extract the contents of foobar.lzh to /tmp, overwriting any  ex-
	      isting files found there,	and suppressing	normal output (similar
	      to  how other Unix tools such as cp(1) or	tar(1) act silently by
	      default).

SEE ALSO
       unzip(1), tar(1), gzip(1), bzip2(1), xz(1), lzip(1)

HISTORY
       The .lzh	format originated with Kazuhiko	Miki's	MS-DOS	archive	 tool,
       LArc,  using  the LZSS algorithm	developed by Haruhiko Okumura, and the
       .lzs filename extension.	The container format was reused	for LHarc,  by
       Haruyasu	 Yoshizaki (Yoshi), which used a new algorithm named LZHUF and
       the .lzh	extension. In later versions, LHarc was	renamed	to LHA and ex-
       tended with more	effective compression algorithms.

       Versions	of the LHA tool	were later ported to various different operat-
       ing systems, including the Amiga, Atari,	MacOS, OS/2 and	Unix.  A  tool
       for MSX-DOS named PMarc reused the container format with	a new compres-
       sion algorithm (.pma extension).

       The  Unix  version  of  the  tool was developed by Masaru Oki, Nobutaka
       Watazaki	and Tsugio Okamoto, but	was released under a software  license
       that  does not conform to the Free Software or Open Source Definitions.
       Lhasa was developed as a	drop-in	replacement that is Free Software  and
       Open Source.

BUGS
       The current version does	not allow the creation of new archive files.

       Some  obscure  compression  algorithms are not currently	supported (see
       the UNSUPPORTED FORMATS section above).

       The tool	does not currently do text  format  conversion	for  non-ASCII
       filenames  when	listing	the contents of	archives. Non-ASCII characters
       are replaced by a question mark.

AUTHOR
       Lhasa was written and is	maintained by Simon Howard.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2011, 2012	Simon Howard.

       Permission to use, copy,	modify,	and/or distribute  this	 software  for
       any  purpose  with  or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the
       above copyright notice and this permission notice appear	in all copies.

       THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED	"AS IS"	AND  THE  AUTHOR  DISCLAIMS  ALL  WAR-
       RANTIES	WITH  REGARD TO	THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING	ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES
       OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE	LIABLE
       FOR ANY SPECIAL,	DIRECT,	INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAM-
       AGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA	OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN
       AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT
       OF OR IN	CONNECTION WITH	THE USE	OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

									lha(1)

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