ARCHIVE_ENTRY(3) | Library Functions Manual | ARCHIVE_ENTRY(3)

# NAME

`archive_entry_clear`, `archive_entry_clone`, `archive_entry_free`, `archive_entry_new` — functions for managing archive entry descriptions

# LIBRARY

Streaming Archive Library (libarchive, -larchive)

# SYNOPSIS

`#include <archive_entry.h>`

struct archive_entry *
`archive_entry_clear`(struct archive_entry *);

struct archive_entry *
`archive_entry_clone`(struct archive_entry *);

void
`archive_entry_free`(struct archive_entry *);

struct archive_entry *
`archive_entry_new`(void);

# DESCRIPTION

These functions create and manipulate data objects that represent entries within an archive. You can think of a struct archive_entry as a heavy-duty version of struct stat: it includes everything from struct stat plus associated pathname, textual group and user names, etc. These objects are used by libarchive(3) to represent the metadata associated with a particular entry in an archive.

## Create and Destroy

There are functions to allocate, destroy, clear, and copy archive_entry objects:

`archive_entry_clear`()
  Erases the object, resetting all internal fields to the same state as a newly-created object. This is provided to allow you to quickly recycle objects without thrashing the heap.
`archive_entry_clone`()
  A deep copy operation; all text fields are duplicated.
`archive_entry_free`()
  Releases the struct archive_entry object.
`archive_entry_new`()
  Allocate and return a blank struct archive_entry object.

## Function groups

Due to high number of functions, the accessor functions can be found in man pages grouped by the purpose.

archive_entry_acl(3)
  Access Control List manipulation
archive_entry_paths(3)
  Path name manipulation
archive_entry_perms(3)
  User, group and mode manipulation
archive_entry_stat(3)
  Functions not in the other groups and copying to/from struct stat.
archive_entry_time(3)
  Time field manipulation

Most of the functions set or read entries in an object. Such functions have one of the following forms:

`archive_entry_set_XXXX`()
  Stores the provided data in the object. In particular, for strings, the pointer is stored, not the referenced string.
`archive_entry_copy_XXXX`()
  As above, except that the referenced data is copied into the object.
`archive_entry_XXXX`()
  Returns the specified data. In the case of strings, a const-qualified pointer to the string is returned.

String data can be set or accessed as wide character strings or normal char strings. The functions that use wide character strings are suffixed with `_w`. Note that these are different representations of the same data: For example, if you store a narrow string and read the corresponding wide string, the object will transparently convert formats using the current locale. Similarly, if you store a wide string and then store a narrow string for the same data, the previously-set wide string will be discarded in favor of the new data.

# SEE ALSO

archive_entry_acl(3), archive_entry_paths(3), archive_entry_perms(3), archive_entry_time(3), libarchive(3)

# HISTORY

The `libarchive` library first appeared in FreeBSD 5.3.

# AUTHORS

The `libarchive` library was written by Tim Kientzle ⟨kientzle@acm.org⟩.

February 2, 2012 | NetBSD 11.0