summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/tools/cpio/src/cpio.1
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorWaldemar Brodkorb <wbx@openadk.org>2010-07-29 15:25:12 +0200
committerWaldemar Brodkorb <wbx@openadk.org>2010-07-29 15:25:12 +0200
commitfd6481d82ff407139157e53df28563d40bb3ad3b (patch)
treeed2ae9e08c31d1eed424793272a60c25cdec6c00 /tools/cpio/src/cpio.1
parent14804005d5b33beb6f52d4a72034acb00c00eb90 (diff)
add a cpio implementation to tools directory
cpio utility is a mess in point of portability. For example NetBSD cpio implementation does not support userid and groupid changes for the archive. This feature is required for initramfs filesystem targets. This cpio is from the Heirloom project. Fix needed rebuild of tools, when changing targets.
Diffstat (limited to 'tools/cpio/src/cpio.1')
-rw-r--r--tools/cpio/src/cpio.1943
1 files changed, 943 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/tools/cpio/src/cpio.1 b/tools/cpio/src/cpio.1
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..9c8b1f98c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/cpio/src/cpio.1
@@ -0,0 +1,943 @@
+'\" t
+.\" Copyright (c) 2003 Gunnar Ritter
+.\"
+.\" This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
+.\" warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
+.\" arising from the use of this software.
+.\"
+.\" Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
+.\" including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute
+.\" it freely, subject to the following restrictions:
+.\"
+.\" 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
+.\" claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
+.\" in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
+.\" appreciated but is not required.
+.\"
+.\" 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
+.\" misrepresented as being the original software.
+.\"
+.\" 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
+.\" Sccsid @(#)cpio.1 1.92 (gritter) 3/26/07
+.TH CPIO 1 "3/26/07" "Heirloom Toolchest" "User Commands"
+.SH NAME
+cpio \- copy file archives in and out
+.SH SYNOPSIS
+.PD 0
+.HP
+.nh
+.ad l
+\fBcpio\fR \fB\-i\fR[\fBbcdfkmrstuvBSV6\fR] [\fB\-C\fI\ size\fR]
+[\fB\-E\fI\ file\fR] [\fB\-H\fI\ hdr\fR] [[\fB\-I\fI\ file\fR]
+[\fB\-M\fI\ msg\fR]] [\fB\-R\fI\ id\fR] [\fIpatterns\fR]
+.HP
+.ad l
+\fBcpio\fR \fB\-o\fR[\fBacvABLPV\fR] [\fB\-C\fI\ size\fR]
+[\fB\-H\fI\ hdr\fR] [[\fB\-M\fI\ msg\fR] [\fB\-O\fI\ file\fR]]
+.HP
+.ad l
+\fBcpio\fR \fB\-p\fR[\fBadlmPuvLV\fR] [\fB\-R\fI\ id\fR] \fIdirectory\fR
+.br
+.PD
+.ad b
+.hy 1
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+.I Cpio
+creates and extracts file archives and copies files.
+.PP
+With the
+.B \-i
+option,
+.I cpio
+works in
+.RI ` copy-in '
+mode and extracts files from a file archive.
+By default,
+the archive is read from standard input.
+Optional arguments are interpreted as
+.I patterns
+and restrict the set of extracted files
+to those matching any of the
+.IR patterns .
+A
+.RB ` !\& '
+at the beginning of the
+.I pattern
+selects all files that do not match this
+.IR pattern .
+The syntax is otherwise identical to that described in
+.IR glob (7),
+except that the slash character
+.RB ` / '
+is matched by
+meta-character constructs with
+.RB ` * ',
+.RB ` ? '
+and
+.RB ` [ '.
+Care must be taken to quote meta-characters appropriately from the shell.
+File permissions are set to those in the archive;
+if the caller is the super-user,
+ownerships are restored as well.
+.I Cpio
+will not create directories,
+preserve modification times
+or overwrite more recently modified target files
+unless the appropriate
+.IR \-d ,
+.I \-m
+or
+.I \-u
+options are specified.
+Archives compressed with
+.IR bzip2 (1),
+.IR compress (1),
+.IR gzip (1),
+or
+.IR rpm (1)
+are transparently de\%compressed on input.
+.PP
+With
+.BR \-o ,
+.I cpio
+works in
+.RI ` copy-out '
+mode,
+creates archives
+and writes them to standard output per default.
+A list of filenames to be included in the archive is
+read from standard input;
+if the name of a directory appears,
+it is included in the archive,
+but
+.I cpio
+will not include any of its members
+unless they are explicitly given in addition.
+The
+.IR find (1)
+utility is useful to generate a list of files
+(see also its
+.I \-cpio
+and
+.I \-ncpio
+operators).
+When producing a filename list for
+.IR cpio ,
+find should always be invoked with
+.I \-depth
+since this makes it possible to extract write-protected directories
+for users other than the super-user.
+.PP
+The
+.B \-p
+option selects
+.RI ` pass '
+mode;
+a list of files is read from standard input as described for
+.IR \-o ;
+files are copied to the specified
+.IR directory ,
+preserving attributes as described for
+.IR \-i .
+Special files are re-created in the target hierarchy,
+and hard links between copied files are preserved.
+.PP
+When a premature end-of-file is detected with
+.I \-i
+and
+.I \-o
+and the archive is a block or character special file,
+the user is prompted for new media.
+.PP
+The following options alter the behavior of
+.IR cpio :
+.TP
+.B \-a
+Resets the access times of files
+that were included in the archive with
+.I \-o
+or copied with
+.IR \-p .
+.TP
+.B \-A
+Append files to the archive.
+The archive must be seekable,
+such as a regular file or a block device,
+or a tape device capable of writing between filemarks.
+.TP
+.B \-b
+Swap bytes within each half word
+and half words within each word
+of input file data.
+.TP
+.B \-B
+Blocks input and output archives at 5120 byte records.
+The default blocking size is device dependent.
+.TP
+.B \-c
+Specifies that archive headers are in SVR4 ASCII cpio format.
+This option is ignored with
+.I \-i
+unless the
+.I \-k
+option is also present.
+.TP
+\fB\-C\fI size\fR
+Blocks input and output archives at
+.I size
+byte records.
+.TP
+.B \-d
+Creates missing parent directories
+for each file extracted from the archive
+and allows the extraction of directories.
+.TP
+\fB\-E\fI file\fR
+Each line read from
+.I file
+is taken as a pattern in addition
+to those specified on the command line.
+.TP
+.B \-f
+Reverses the sense of patterns
+such that a file that does not match any of the patterns
+is selected.
+.TP
+\fB\-H\fI header\fR
+Specifies the archive header format to be one of:
+.sp
+.in +6
+.TS
+lfB l.
+\fBcrc\fR SVR4 ASCII cpio format with checksum;\
+\fBsco\fR T{
+SCO UnixWare 7.1 ASCII cpio format;
+T}
+\fBscocrc\fR T{
+SCO UnixWare 7.1 ASCII cpio format with checksum;
+T}
+\fBodc\fR T{
+traditional ASCII cpio format, as standardized in IEEE Std. 1003.1, 1996;
+T}
+\fBbbs\fR byte-swapped binary cpio format;
+\fBsgi\fR T{
+SGI IRIX extended binary cpio format;
+T}
+\fBcray\fR T{
+Cray UNICOS 9 cpio format;
+T}
+\fBcray5\fR T{
+Cray UNICOS 5 cpio format;
+T}
+\fBdec\fR T{
+Digital UNIX extended cpio format;
+T}
+\fBtar\fR tar format;
+\fBotar\fR old tar format;
+\fBustar\fR T{
+IEEE Std. 1003.1, 1996 tar format;
+T}
+.T&
+l s.
+\fBpax\fR[\fB:\fIoption\fB,\fR[\fIoption\fB,\fR\|...]]
+.T&
+l l.
+\& T{
+IEEE Std. 1003.1, 2001 pax format.
+Format-specific \fIoptions\fR are:
+.in +2n
+.ti 0
+.br
+\fBlinkdata\fR
+.br
+For a regular file which has multiple hard links,
+the file data is stored once for each link in the archive,
+instead of being stored for the first entry only.
+This option must be used with care
+since many implementations are unable
+to read the resulting archive.
+.ti 0
+.br
+\fBtimes\fR
+.br
+Causes the times of last access and last modification
+of each archived file
+to be stored in an extended \fIpax\fR header.
+This in particular allows the time of last access
+to be restored when the archive is read.
+.br
+.in -2n
+T}
+\fBsun\fR T{
+Sun Solaris 7 extended tar format;
+T}
+\fBgnu\fR T{
+GNU tar format;
+T}
+\fBbar\fR T{
+SunOS 4 bar format;
+T}
+\fBzip\fR[\fB:\fIcc\fR] T{
+zip format with optional compression method.
+If \fIcc\fR is one of
+\fBen\fR (normal, default),
+\fBex\fR (extra),
+\fBef\fR (fast),
+or
+\fBes\fR (super fast),
+the standard \fIdeflate\fR compression is used.
+\fBe0\fR selects no compression,
+and
+\fBbz2\fR selects \fIbzip2\fR compression.
+T}
+.TE
+.in -6
+.sp
+This option is ignored with
+.I \-i
+unless the
+.I \-k
+option is also present.
+The default for
+.I \-o
+is binary cpio format.
+.TP
+\fB\-I\fI\ file\fR
+Selects a
+.I file
+that is read with the
+.I \-i
+option instead of standard input.
+.TP
+.B \-k
+Try to continue operation on read errors and invalid headers.
+If an archive contains another archive,
+files from either archive may be chosen.
+.TP
+.B \-l
+Link files instead of copying them with
+.I \-p
+if possible.
+.TP
+.B \-L
+Follow symbolic links when reading files with
+.I \-o
+or
+.IR \-p .
+.TP
+.B \-m
+Restore modification times of extracted files
+to those given in the archive.
+.TP
+\fB\-M\fI message\fR
+The given
+.I message
+is printed instead of the standard one
+with
+.I \-I
+or
+.I \-O
+when changing media.
+.TP
+\fB\-O\fI file\fR
+Selects an archive
+.I file
+that is written instead of standard output
+with the
+.I \-o
+option.
+.TP
+.B \-P
+In copy-out or pass mode,
+interpret the data read from standard input
+as prototype lines
+of colon-separated fields
+of the form
+.in +3m
+.sp
+\fItype\fB:\fIuser\fB:\fIgroup\fB:\fImode\fB:\fIatime\fB:\fImtime\fB:\fImajor\fB:\fIminor\fB:\fIpath\fR
+.sp
+.in -3m
+For each non-empty field,
+the corresponding attribute of the input file is overridden.
+With this option,
+an unprivileged user can create
+an archive that contains files
+with arbitrary attributes.
+The meanings of the individual fields are:
+.RS
+.TP 6
+.PD 0
+.I type
+File type, one of:
+\fBb\fR (block device),
+\fBc\fR (character device),
+\fBd\fR (directory),
+\fBf\fR (plain file),
+\fBp\fR (named pipe),
+or
+\fBs\fR (symbolic link).
+.TP
+.I user
+The owner of the file,
+which can be a numeric user ID or a user name.
+.TP
+.I group
+The group owner of the file,
+which can be a numeric group ID or a group name.
+.TP
+.I mode
+The octal mode of the file.
+.TP
+.I atime
+The time the file was last accessed.
+Note that most archive formats cannot store this attribute,
+in which case it is ignored.
+The format is the same as that of the
+.I mtime
+field.
+.TP
+.I mtime
+The time the file was last modified.
+This is either a decimal integer
+specifying the seconds past the epoch,
+or an ISO\ 8601 date and time field
+of the format \fIYYYYMMDD\fBT\fIHHMMSS\fR,
+e.g. 20070326T190511,
+the latter being relative to the current time zone
+and with all digits past the \fBT\fR being optional.
+.TP
+.I major minor
+Major and minor device numbers as with
+.IR mknod (1M).
+These fields are only allowed for block and character devices.
+.TP
+.I path
+The name of the file to be archived.
+If the file is not a symbolic link,
+and the specification is otherwise sufficient,
+the file needs not exist
+at the time the archive is created.
+A non-existent regular file will be empty in the archive.
+.PD
+.RE
+.IP
+This option is an extension.
+.TP
+.B \-r
+Rename files interactively.
+Before a file is extracted from the archive,
+its file name is printed on standard error
+and the user is prompted to specify a substitute file name.
+If the line read from the terminal is empty,
+the file is skipped;
+if the line consists of a single dot,
+the name is retained;
+otherwise,
+the line forms the new file name.
+.TP
+\fB\-R\fI user\fR
+Set the ownership of extracted files
+to the user and group ids of
+.I user
+instead of those specified in the archive.
+Valid only for the super-user.
+.TP
+.B \-s
+Swap bytes within each half word
+of input file data.
+.TP
+.B \-S
+Swap half words within each word
+of input file data.
+.TP
+.B \-t
+When combined with the
+.I \-o
+option,
+a list of files in the archive is written to standard output;
+no files are extracted.
+.TP
+.B \-u
+.I Cpio
+will overwrite existing target files
+that were modified more recently than the file in the archive
+when this option is given.
+.TP
+.B \-v
+Prints the file names of archived or extracted files with
+.I \-i
+and
+.I \-o
+and a verbose output format with
+.IR \-t .
+If given twice
+.RB ( \-vv )
+in combination with
+.I \-t
+when reading a
+.I zip
+archive,
+information about compression level and method is printed.
+.TP
+.B \-V
+Prints a dot for each archived or extracted file.
+.TP
+.B \-6
+Selects Unix 6th Edition archive format
+(only in copy-in mode).
+.PP
+.ne 37
+Characteristics of archive formats are as follows:
+.sp
+.TS
+allbox;
+l r r r l
+l1fB r2 n2 r2 c.
+ T{
+.ad l
+maximum user/\%group id
+T} T{
+.ad l
+maximum file size
+T} T{
+.ad l
+maximum pathname length
+T} T{
+.ad l
+bits in dev_t (major/minor)
+T}
+binary 65535 2 GB\ 256 \ 16
+\-H\ sgi 65535 9 EB\ 256 \ 14/18
+\-H\ odc 262143 8 GB\ 256 \ 18
+\-H\ dec 262143 8 GB\ 256 \ 24/24
+T{
+\-c, \-H\ crc
+T} 4.3e9 4 GB\ 1024 \ 32/32
+T{
+\-H\ sco, \-H\ scocrc
+T} 4.3e9 9 EB\ 1024 \ 32/32
+T{
+\-H\ cray, \-H\ cray5
+T} 1.8e19 9 EB\ 65535 \ 64
+\-H\ otar 2097151 8 GB\ 99 \ n/a
+T{
+\-H\ tar,
+\-H\ ustar
+T} 2097151 8 GB\ 256 (99) \ 21/21
+\-H\ pax 1.8e19 9 EB\ 65535 \ 21/21
+\-H\ sun 1.8e19 9 EB\ 65535 \ 63/63
+\-H\ gnu 1.8e19 9 EB\ 65535 \ 63/63
+\-H\ bar 2097151 8 GB\ 427 \ 21
+\-H\ zip 4.3e9 9 EB\ 60000 \ 32
+.TE
+.sp
+.PP
+By default,
+.B binary
+cpio archives are written.
+The byte order of such archives
+depends on the machine
+on which the archive is created.
+Unlike some other implementations,
+.I cpio
+fully supports
+archives of either byte order.
+.I \-H\ bbs
+can be used to create an archive
+with the byte order opposed to that of the current machine.
+.PP
+The
+.B sgi
+format extends the binary format
+to handle larger files and more device bits.
+If an archive does not contain any entries
+that actually need the extensions,
+it is identical to a binary archive.
+.I \-H\ sgi
+archives are always created in MSB order.
+.PP
+The
+.B odc
+format was introduced with System\ III
+and standardized with IEEE Std. 1003.1.
+All known
+.I cpio
+implementations since around 1980 can read this format.
+.PP
+The
+.B dec
+format extends the
+.I odc
+format
+to support more device bits.
+Archives in this format are generally incompatible with
+.I odc
+archives
+and need special implementation support to be read.
+.PP
+The
+.B \-c
+format was introduced with System\ V Release\ 4.
+Except for the file size,
+it imposes no practical limitations
+on files archived.
+The original SVR4 implementation
+stores the contents of hard linked files
+only once and with the last archived link.
+This
+.I cpio
+ensures compatibility with SVR4.
+With archives created by implementations that employ other methods
+for storing hard linked files,
+each file is extracted as a single link,
+and some of these files may be empty.
+Implementations that expect methods other than the original SVR4 one
+may extract no data for hard linked files at all.
+.PP
+The
+.B crc
+format is essentially the same as the
+.I \-c
+format
+but adds a simple checksum (not a CRC, despite its name)
+for the data of regular files.
+The checksum requires the implementation to read each file twice,
+which can considerably increase running time and system overhead.
+As not all implementations claiming to support this format
+handle the checksum correctly,
+it is of limited use.
+.PP
+The
+.B sco
+and
+.B scocrc
+formats are variants of the
+.I \-c
+and
+.I \-H\ crc
+formats, respectively,
+with extensions to support larger files.
+The extensions result in a different archive format
+only if files larger than slightly below 2\ GB occur.
+.PP
+The
+.B cray
+format extends all header fields to 64 bits.
+It thus imposes no practical limitations of any kind
+on archived files,
+but requires special implementation support
+to be read.
+Although it is originally a binary format,
+the byte order is always MSB as on Cray machines.
+The
+.B cray5
+format is an older variant
+that was used with UNICOS 5 and earlier.
+.PP
+The
+.B otar
+format was introduced with the Unix 7th Edition
+.I tar
+utility.
+Archives in this format
+can be read on all Unix systems since about 1980.
+It can only hold regular files
+(and, on more recent systems, symbolic links).
+For file names that contain characters with the most significant bit set
+(non-ASCII characters),
+implementations differ in the interpretation of the header checksum.
+.PP
+The
+.B ustar
+format was introduced with IEEE Std. 1003.1.
+It extends the old
+.I tar
+format
+with support for directories, device files,
+and longer file names.
+Pathnames of single-linked files can consist of up to 256 characters,
+dependent on the position of slashes.
+Files with multiple links can only be archived
+if the first link encountered is no longer than 100 characters.
+Due to implementation errors,
+file names longer than 99 characters
+can not considered to be generally portable.
+Another addition of the
+.I ustar
+format
+are fields for the symbolic user and group IDs.
+These fields are created by
+.IR cpio ,
+but ignored when reading such archives.
+.PP
+With
+.BR "\-H tar" ,
+a variant of the
+.I ustar
+format is selected
+which stores file type bits in the mode field
+to work around common implementation problems.
+These bits are ignored by
+.I cpio
+when reading archives.
+.PP
+The
+.B pax
+format is an extension to the
+.I ustar
+format.
+If attributes cannot be archived with
+.IR ustar ,
+an extended header is written.
+Unless the size of an entry is greater than 8\ GB,
+a
+.I pax
+archive should be readable by any implementation
+capable of reading
+.I ustar
+archives,
+although files may be extracted under wrong names
+and extended headers may be extracted as separate files.
+If a file name contains non-UTF-8 characters,
+it may not be archived or extracted correctly
+because of a problem of the
+.I pax
+format specification.
+.PP
+The
+.B sun
+format extends the
+.I ustar
+format similar as the
+.I pax
+format does.
+The extended headers in
+.I sun
+format archives are not understood
+by implementations that support only the
+.I pax
+format and vice-versa.
+The
+.I sun
+format has also problems with non-UTF-8 characters in file names.
+.PP
+The
+.B GNU
+.I tar
+format is mostly compatible with the other
+.I tar
+formats,
+unless an archive entry actually uses its extended features.
+There are no practical limitations on files archived with this format.
+The implementation of
+.I cpio
+is limited to expanded numerical fields
+and long file names;
+in particular,
+there is no support for sparse files or incremental backups.
+If
+.I cpio
+creates a multi-volume
+.I GNU
+archive,
+it just splits a single-volume archive in multiple parts,
+as with the other formats;
+.I GNU
+multi-volume archives are not supported.
+.PP
+The
+.B bar
+format is similar to the
+.I tar
+format, but can store longer file names.
+It requires special implementation support to be read.
+.PP
+The
+.B zip
+format can be read in many non-Unix environments.
+There are several restrictions on archives
+intended for data exchange:
+only regular files should be stored;
+file times, permissions and ownerships
+might be ignored by other implementations;
+there should be no more than 65536 files in the archive;
+the total archive size should not exceed 2 GB;
+only
+.I deflate
+compression should be used.
+Otherwise,
+.I cpio
+stores all information available with other archive formats
+in extended
+.I zip
+file headers,
+so if archive portability is of no concern,
+the
+.I zip
+implementation in
+.I cpio
+can archive complete Unix file hierarchies.
+.I Cpio
+supports the
+.I zip64
+format extension for large files;
+it automatically writes
+.I zip64
+entries if necessary.
+.I Cpio
+can extract all known
+.I zip
+format compression codes.
+It does not support
+.I zip
+encryption.
+Multi-volume
+.I zip
+archives are created as splitted single-volume archives,
+as with the other formats written by
+.IR cpio ;
+generic multi-volume
+.I zip
+archives are not supported.
+.SH EXAMPLES
+Extract all files named
+.I Makefile
+or
+.I makefile
+from the archive stored on
+.IR /dev/rmt/c0s0 ,
+overwriting recent files:
+.RS 2
+.sp
+cpio \-idmu \-I /dev/rmt/c0s0 \'[Mm]akefile\' \'*/[Mm]akefile\'
+.RE
+.PP
+List the files contained in a software distribution archive:
+.RS 2
+.sp
+cpio \-itv \-I distribution.tar.gz
+.RE
+.PP
+Write a
+.IR gzip (1)
+compressed
+.I ustar
+archive containing all files below the directory
+.I \%project
+to the file
+.IR \%project.tar.gz ,
+excluding all directories named
+.I CVS
+or
+.I SCCS
+and their contents:
+.RS 2
+.sp
+find project \-depth \-print | egrep \-v \'/(CVS|SCCS)(/|$)\' |
+.br
+ cpio \-o \-H ustar | gzip \-c > project.tar.gz
+.RE
+.PP
+Copy the directory
+.I work
+and its contents
+to the directory
+.IR \%savedfiles :
+.RS 2
+.sp
+find work \-depth \-print | cpio \-pdm savedfiles
+.RE
+.PP
+Self-extracting zip archives are not automatically recognized,
+but can normally be read using the
+.I \-k
+option, as with
+.RS 2
+.sp
+cpio \-itvk \-H zip \-I archive.exe
+.sp
+.RE
+.SH "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES"
+.TP
+.BR LANG ", " LC_ALL
+See
+.IR locale (7).
+.TP
+.B LC_CTYPE
+Selects the mapping of bytes to characters
+used for matching patterns.
+.TP
+.B LC_TIME
+Sets the month names printed with
+.IR \-tv .
+.TP
+.B SYSV3
+If this variable is set,
+the
+.I \-c
+option has the same effect as \fI\-H odc\fR;
+\fB\-H newc\fR can be used
+to select SVR4 ASCII format.
+The output format of
+.I \-tv
+is changed, as well as the text of diagnostic messages.
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+find(1),
+pax(1),
+tar(1)
+.SH DIAGNOSTICS
+.I Cpio
+exits with
+.sp
+.TS
+l8fB l.
+0 after successful operation;
+1 on usage errors;
+2 when operation was continued after minor errors;
+3 on fatal error conditions.
+.TE
+.SH NOTES
+Device and inode numbers
+are used for hard link recognition
+with the various cpio formats.
+Since the header space cannot hold
+large numbers present in current file systems,
+devices and inode numbers are set on a per-archive basis.
+This enables hard link recognition with all cpio formats,
+but the link connection to files appended with
+.I \-A
+is not preserved.
+.PP
+If a numeric user or group id does not fit
+within the size of the header field in the selected format,
+files are stored with the user id (or group id, respectively)
+set to 60001.
+.PP
+Use of the
+.I \-A
+option with a
+.I zip
+format archive may cause data loss
+if the archive was not previously created by
+.I cpio
+itself.
+.PP
+.I Cpio
+cannot store file names that contain newline characters;
+see the
+.I NOTES
+section of
+.IR find (1)
+for more information.
+.PP
+If the file names passed to
+.I "cpio \-o"
+begin with a slash character,
+absolute path names are stored in the archive
+and will be extracted to these path names later
+regardless of the current working directory.
+This is normally not advisable,
+and relative path names should be passed to
+.I cpio
+only.