SHAR(1)                    OpenBSD Reference Manual                    SHAR(1)

NAME
     shar - create a shell archive of files



SYNOPSIS
     shar file [...]

DESCRIPTION
     shar writes an sh(1) shell script to the standard output which will
     recreate the file hierarchy specified by the command line operands.  Di-
     rectories will be recreated and must be specified before the files they
     contain (the find(1) utility does this correctly).

     shar is normally used for distributing files by ftp(1) or mail(1).

SEE ALSO
     compress(1),  mail(1),  tar(1),  uuencode(1)

BUGS
     shar makes no provisions for special types of files or files containing
     magic characters.

     It is easy to insert trojan horses into shar files.  It is strongly rec-
     ommended that all shell archive files be examined before running them
     through sh(1).  Archives produced using this implementation of shar may
     be easily examined with the command:

           egrep -v '^[X#]' shar.file

EXAMPLES
     To create a shell archive of the program ls(1) and mail it to Rick:

           cd ls
           shar `find . -print` |  mail -s "ls source" rick

     To recreate the program directory:

           mkdir ls
           cd ls
           ...
           <delete header lines and examine mailed archive>
           ...
           sh archive

HISTORY
     The shar command appeared in 4.4BSD.

OpenBSD 2.6                      June 6, 1993                                1