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Invoking the unshar program

The format of the unshar command is:

unshar [ option ] ... [ file ... ]

Each file is processed in turn, as a shell archive or a collection of shell archives. If no files are given, then standard input is processed instead.

Options:

--version

Print the version number of the program on standard output, then immediately exits.

--help

Print an help summary on standard output, then immediately exits.

-d directory

--directory=directory

Change directory to directory before unpacking any files.

-c

--overwrite

Passed as an option to the shar file. Many shell archive scripts (including those produced by shar 3.40 and newer) accepts a -c argument to indicate that existing files should be overwritten.

-e

--exit-0

This option exists mainly for people who collect many shell archives into a single mail folder. With this option, unshar isolates each different shell archive from the others which have been put in the same file, unpacking each in in turn, from the beginning of the file towards its end. Its proper operation relies on the fact that many shar files are terminated by a `exit 0' at the beginning of a line.

Option -e is internally equivalent to -E "exit 0".

-E string

--split-at=string

This option works like -e, but it allows you to specify the string that separates archives if `exit 0' isn't appropriate.

For example, noticing that most `.signatures' have a `--' on a line right before them, one can sometimes use `--split-at=--' for splitting shell archives which lack the `exit 0' line at end. The signature will then be skipped altogether with the headers of the following message.

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