This repo contains an in-progress attempt to write an archiver in zig in order to solve this issue.
As of writing no actual work has been done yet and things are just getting started...
The thing that make this tricky is that the "ar" format used as a basis for the archives that linkers use hasn't been standardised, meaning that depending hon the platform being targeted - the format can vary in subtly different ways.
Three main variants to focus on (for now):
- BSD (32 & 64 Bit) (the latter used on Darwin)
- System V (or GNU) (32 & 64 BIT)
- Windows
The goal is to make something that is a drop-in replacement for llvm-ar
The documentation for llvm-ar can be found here:
https://llvm.org/docs/CommandGuide/llvm-ar.html
The Wikipedia article on the format here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar_(Unix)
A lot of the important operations supported by llvm-ar aren't actually documented in the program itself. However, as it is compatible with other ar implementations a reference man page for one of those can be found here: