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RANLIB(5)                     File Formats Manual                    RANLIB(5)

NAME
     ranlib - a.out archive (library) table-of-contents format

SYNOPSIS
     #include <ranlib.h>

DESCRIPTION
     The archive table-of-contents command ranlib creates a table of contents
     for archives, containing object files, to be used by the link-editor
     ld(1).  It operates on archives created with the utility ar(1).

     The ranlib function prepends a new file to the archive which has three
     separate parts.  The first part is a standard archive header, which has a
     special name field,  "__.SYMDEF".

     The second part is a "long" followed by a list of ranlib structures.  The
     long is the size, in bytes, of the list of ranlib structures.  Each of
     the ranlib structures consists of a zero based offset into the next
     section (a string table of symbols) and an offset from the beginning of
     the archive to the start of the archive file which defines the symbol.
     The actual number of ranlib structures is this number divided by the size
     of an individual ranlib structure.

     The third part is a "long" followed by a string table.  The long is the
     size, in bytes of the string table.

SEE ALSO
     ar(1), ranlib(1)

BUGS
     The <ranlib.h> header file, and the ranlib manual page, do not describe
     the table-of-contents used by ELF systems, which is that from the AT&T
     System V Release 4 UNIX ABI.

NetBSD 10.99                     June 6, 1993                     NetBSD 10.99