unzipsfx

UNZIPSFX(1)                 General Commands Manual                UNZIPSFX(1)

NAME
       unzipsfx - self-extracting stub for prepending to ZIP archives

SYNOPSIS
       <name  of  unzipsfx+archive  combo>  [-cfptuz[ajnoqsCLV$]] [file(s) ...
       [-x xfile(s) ...]]

DESCRIPTION
       unzipsfx is a modified version of unzip(1) designed to be prepended  to
       existing  ZIP  archives in order to form self-extracting archives.  In-
       stead of taking its first non-flag argument to be the zipfile(s) to  be
       extracted, unzipsfx seeks itself under the name by which it was invoked
       and tests or extracts the contents of the  appended  archive.   Because
       the  executable  stub  adds  bulk  to the archive (the whole purpose of
       which is to be as small as possible), a number of the less-vital  capa-
       bilities in regular unzip have been removed.  Among these are the usage
       (or help) screen, the listing and diagnostic functions (-l and -v), the
       ability  to  decompress  older  compression  formats  (the  ``reduce,''
       ``shrink'' and ``implode'' methods).  The ability to extract to  a  di-
       rectory  other  than  the current one can be selected as a compile-time
       option, which is now enabled by default  since  UnZipSFX  version  5.5.
       Similarly,  decryption is supported as a compile-time option but should
       be avoided unless the attached archive contains encrypted files. Start-
       ing  with  release 5.5, another compile-time option adds a simple ``run
       command after extraction'' feature.  This feature is  currently  incom-
       patible with the ``extract to different directory'' feature and remains
       disabled by default.

       Note that self-extracting archives made with unzipsfx are no  more  (or
       less) portable across different operating systems than is the unzip ex-
       ecutable itself.  In general a self-extracting archive made on  a  par-
       ticular Unix system, for example, will only self-extract under the same
       flavor of Unix.  Regular unzip may still be used to extract the  embed-
       ded  archive  as  with  any normal zipfile, although it will generate a
       harmless warning about extra bytes at the  beginning  of  the  zipfile.
       Despite this, however, the self-extracting archive is technically not a
       valid ZIP archive, and PKUNZIP may be unable to  test  or  extract  it.
       This limitation is due to the simplistic manner in which the archive is
       created; the internal directory structure is not updated to reflect the
       extra bytes prepended to the original zipfile.

ARGUMENTS
       [file(s)]
              An  optional  list  of archive members to be processed.  Regular
              expressions (wildcards) similar to those in Unix egrep(1) may be
              used to match multiple members.  These wildcards may contain:

              *      matches a sequence of 0 or more characters

              ?      matches exactly 1 character

              [...]  matches  any  single character found inside the brackets;
                     ranges are specified by a beginning character, a  hyphen,
                     and  an  ending  character.  If an exclamation point or a
                     caret (`!' or `^') follows the  left  bracket,  then  the
                     range  of  characters within the brackets is complemented
                     (that is,  anything  except  the  characters  inside  the
                     brackets is considered a match).

              (Be  sure  to quote any character that might otherwise be inter-
              preted or modified by the operating system,  particularly  under
              Unix and VMS.)

       [-x xfile(s)]
              An optional list of archive members to be excluded from process-
              ing.   Since  wildcard  characters  match  directory  separators
              (`/'),  this option may be used to exclude any files that are in
              subdirectories.  For example, ``foosfx *.[ch] -x */*'' would ex-
              tract  all C source files in the main directory, but none in any
              subdirectories.  Without the -x option, all C  source  files  in
              all directories within the zipfile would be extracted.

       If unzipsfx is compiled with SFX_EXDIR defined, the following option is
       also enabled:

       [-d exdir]
              An optional directory to which to extract  files.   By  default,
              all files and subdirectories are recreated in the current direc-
              tory; the -d option allows extraction in an arbitrary  directory
              (always  assuming one has permission to write to the directory).
              The option and directory may be concatenated without  any  white
              space  between  them,  but note that this may cause normal shell
              behavior to be suppressed.  In particular, ``-d ~''  (tilde)  is
              expanded  by  Unix C shells into the name of the user's home di-
              rectory, but ``-d~'' is treated as a literal subdirectory  ``~''
              of the current directory.

OPTIONS
       unzipsfx  supports  the following unzip(1) options:  -c and -p (extract
       to standard output/screen), -f and  -u  (freshen  and  update  existing
       files  upon  extraction),  -t (test archive) and -z (print archive com-
       ment).  All normal listing options (-l, -v and -Z) have  been  removed,
       but  the  testing  option (-t) may be used as a ``poor man's'' listing.
       Alternatively, those creating self-extracting archives may wish to  in-
       clude a short listing in the zipfile comment.

       See unzip(1) for a more complete description of these options.

MODIFIERS
       unzipsfx  currently  supports all unzip(1) modifiers:  -a (convert text
       files), -n (never overwrite), -o (overwrite without prompting), -q (op-
       erate quietly), -C (match names case-insensitively), -L (convert upper-
       case-OS names to lowercase), -j (junk paths)  and  -V  (retain  version
       numbers);  plus  the  following  operating-system specific options:  -X
       (restore VMS owner/protection info), -s (convert spaces in filenames to
       underscores  [DOS,  OS/2, NT]) and -$ (restore volume label [DOS, OS/2,
       NT, Amiga]).

       (Support for regular ASCII text-conversion may  be  removed  in  future
       versions, since it is simple enough for the archive's creator to ensure
       that text files have the appropriate format for the local  OS.   EBCDIC
       conversion  will  of  course continue to be supported since the zipfile
       format implies ASCII storage of text files.)

       See unzip(1) for a more complete description of these modifiers.

ENVIRONMENT OPTIONS
       unzipsfx uses the same environment variables as unzip(1) does, although
       this  is likely to be an issue only for the person creating and testing
       the self-extracting archive.  See unzip(1) for details.

DECRYPTION
       Decryption is supported exactly as in unzip(1); that is,  interactively
       with  a  non-echoing  prompt for the password(s).  See unzip(1) for de-
       tails.  Once again, note that if the archive  has  no  encrypted  files
       there  is  no  reason to use a version of unzipsfx with decryption sup-
       port; that only adds to the size of the archive.

AUTORUN COMMAND
       When unzipsfx was compiled with  CHEAP_SFX_AUTORUN  defined,  a  simple
       ``command  autorun'' feature is supported. You may enter a command into
       the Zip archive comment, using the following format:

       $AUTORUN$>[command line string]

       When unzipsfx recognizes the ``$AUTORUN$>'' token at the  beginning  of
       the Zip archive comment, the remainder of the first line of the comment
       (until the first newline character) is passed as a shell command to the
       operating  system using the C rtl ``system'' function. Before executing
       the command, unzipsfx displays the command on the console  and  prompts
       the user for confirmation.  When the user has switched off prompting by
       specifying the -q option, autorun commands are never executed.

       In case the archive comment contains additional lines of text, the  re-
       mainder  of  the  archive comment following the first line is displayed
       normally, unless quiet operation was requested by supplying  a  -q  op-
       tion.

EXAMPLES
       To create a self-extracting archive letters from a regular zipfile let-
       ters.zip and change the new  archive's  permissions  to  be  world-exe-
       cutable under Unix:

       cat unzipsfx letters.zip > letters
       chmod 755 letters
       zip -A letters

       To  create  the  same archive under MS-DOS, OS/2 or NT (note the use of
       the /b [binary] option to the copy command):

       copy /b unzipsfx.exe+letters.zip letters.exe
       zip -A letters.exe

       Under VMS:

       copy unzipsfx.exe,letters.zip letters.exe
       letters == "$currentdisk:[currentdir]letters.exe"
       zip -A letters.exe

       (The VMS append command may also be used.  The second command  installs
       the  new  program as a ``foreign command'' capable of taking arguments.
       The third line assumes that Zip is already installed as a foreign  com-
       mand.)  Under AmigaDOS:

       MakeSFX letters letters.zip UnZipSFX

       (MakeSFX  is included with the UnZip source distribution and with Amiga
       binary distributions.  ``zip -A'' doesn't work on Amiga self-extracting
       archives.)   To  test  (or  list) the newly created self-extracting ar-
       chive:

       letters -t

       To test letters quietly, printing only  a  summary  message  indicating
       whether the archive is OK or not:

       letters -tqq

       To extract the complete contents into the current directory, recreating
       all files and subdirectories as necessary:

       letters

       To extract all *.txt files (in Unix quote the `*'):

       letters *.txt

       To extract everything except the *.txt files:

       letters -x *.txt

       To extract only the README file to standard output (the screen):

       letters -c README

       To print only the zipfile comment:

       letters -z

LIMITATIONS
       The principle and fundamental limitation of unzipsfx is that it is  not
       portable  across architectures or operating systems, and therefore nei-
       ther are the resulting archives.  For some architectures there is  lim-
       ited  portability,  however  (e.g., between some flavors of Intel-based
       Unix).

       Another problem with the current implementation  is  that  any  archive
       with  ``junk''  prepended  to  the beginning technically is no longer a
       zipfile (unless zip(1) is used to adjust the zipfile offsets  appropri-
       ately, as noted above).  unzip(1) takes note of the prepended bytes and
       ignores them since some file-transfer protocols, notably MacBinary, are
       also  known  to  prepend  junk.  But PKWARE's archiver suite may not be
       able to deal with the modified archive unless its offsets have been ad-
       justed.

       unzipsfx  has no knowledge of the user's PATH, so in general an archive
       must either be in the current directory when it is invoked, or  else  a
       full or relative path must be given.  If a user attempts to extract the
       archive from a directory in the PATH other than the  current  one,  un-
       zipsfx will print a warning to the effect, ``can't find myself.''  This
       is always true under Unix and may be true in some cases  under  MS-DOS,
       depending on the compiler used (Microsoft C fully qualifies the program
       name, but other compilers may not).  Under OS/2 and NT there are  oper-
       ating-system  calls  available  that provide the full path name, so the
       archive may be invoked from anywhere in the user's path.  The situation
       is not known for AmigaDOS, Atari TOS, MacOS, etc.

       As noted above, a number of the normal unzip(1) functions have been re-
       moved in order to make unzipsfx smaller:  usage  and  diagnostic  info,
       listing  functions  and  extraction  to  other directories.  Also, only
       stored and deflated files are  supported.   The  latter  limitation  is
       mainly relevant to those who create SFX archives, however.

       VMS  users  must know how to set up self-extracting archives as foreign
       commands in order to use any of unzipsfx's options.  This is not neces-
       sary  for  simple  extraction,  but  the command to do so then becomes,
       e.g., ``run letters'' (to continue the examples given above).

       unzipsfx on the Amiga requires the use of a special  program,  MakeSFX,
       in  order to create working self-extracting archives; simple concatena-
       tion does not work.  (For technically oriented users, the attached  ar-
       chive  is  defined  as  a  ``debug hunk.'')  There may be compatibility
       problems between the ROM levels of older Amigas and newer ones.

       All current bugs in unzip(1) exist in unzipsfx as well.

DIAGNOSTICS
       unzipsfx's exit status (error level) is identical to that of  unzip(1);
       see the corresponding man page.

SEE ALSO
       funzip(1),  unzip(1), zip(1), zipcloak(1), zipgrep(1), zipinfo(1), zip-
       note(1), zipsplit(1)

URL
       The Info-ZIP home page is currently at
       http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/
       or
       ftp://ftp.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/ .

AUTHORS
       Greg Roelofs was responsible for the basic modifications to UnZip  nec-
       essary  to  create UnZipSFX.  See unzip(1) for the current list of Zip-
       Bugs authors, or the file CONTRIBS in the UnZip source distribution for
       the full list of Info-ZIP contributors.

Info-ZIP                     20 April 2009 (v6.0)                  UNZIPSFX(1)