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Name

par - Palm database archiver, version 0.5.

Synopsis

par t dbfile

par h dbfile

par x dbfile [ioptions] [records..]

par c [hoptions] dbfile name type cid [ioptions] [files..]

par u [hoptions] dbfile [ioptions] [updates..]

par a [hoptions] dbfile [ioptions] [files..]

par d [hoptions] dbfile [doptions] [records..]

par V

Description

The par utility creates and manipulates PalmOS database (.pdb) and resource (.prc) files. The first argument determines the mode of operation, as follows:
t
List contents. For regular databases a list of records is generated, each line showing the record attributes, category, record size, and an ascii dump of the first few bytes of the record. For resource databases, a list of resources is generated, each line showing resource type, hex id, size, and ascii dump of the first few bytes of the resource.
h
List header information. A report of the database header is generated, showing the database name (this is the name that would be visible on a device), the database type, creator id, attributes, version, creation time, last modification time, last backup time, mod number, nrecords (or resources), and the size of the application info block in the database.
x
Extract. The extract mode can extract all or just specific records from a database. With no further arguments, all records will be extracted from the database. If further arguments are provided, these should specify the index of the record to extract for regular databases, and the type and id of the desired resource for resource databases. By default, individual records will be saved as files with the name <index>.pdr, where <index> is the index of the record in the database, individual resources will be saved as files with the name <type><id>.bin, where <type> is the 4 character type of the resource, and <id> is the resource id in 4 digit hexadecimal. A preferred filename for a saved item can be specified for each record using the -f option to the record or resource specification.
c
Create a new database. The create mode creates a new database file, with the database name, type, and creator id specified as (required) arguments. If no further arguments are specified, the resulting database will contain no records, but will have a valid database header. If further arguments are specified, they should specify files to be appended to the database as records or resources (see the -a mode description).
u
Touch the header or record attributes. In touch mode, changes to the database header can be specified. By default, the last modification time will be updated to the current time, but further changes can be specified using the header options. See HEADER OPTIONS section. In addition, attribute information for particular records can be specified. For regular databases, the new record category and record attributes may be specified, using the -c and -a options. The records to touch are specified by index. For resource databases, the new resource type and id may be specified using the -T option. The resources to touch are specified by <type> and <id>.
a
Append records or resources. In append mode, records or resources will be added to the database. For regular databases, the target record category and record attributes may be specified, using the -c and -a options before the source filename. For resource databases, the target resource type and id may be specified using the -T option before the source filename. If the -T option is not specified, the source filename is assumed to specify the type and id in the <type><index> fashion described for the x mode. In addition to individual records and resources, par can append whole databases, in effect merging the records or resources from one database into another. Databases may be specified as append items explicitly using the -p argument option, or implicitly by using a .pdb extension for record databases, and .prc extension for resource databases.
d
Delete. In delete mode, records or resources are removed from the database. Records are specified by index, resources are specified by type and id.
V
Version. Print the version number.
r
Create resource. r is an convenience alias for c -a resource. See HEADER OPTIONS section.
l
l is an alias for t.
i
i is an alias for h.
-mode
All modes may be prefixed with - if that makes you feel better.

Header Options

The a, c, d, u modes accept hoptions which update the database information as follows:
-n name 
Database name. This is the name of the database that will be visible on the device. Note that this is entirely independent from the dbfile, although some utilities will imply the latter from the former.
-T type 
The four character database type. For example, an application resource database is of type 'appl'. The address book database is of type 'DATA'.
-I cid 
The four character creator identifier. This specifies which application owns the database.
-a attributes 
Database attributes. These may be specified as a hex number, or symbolically using the keywords resource, readonly, dirty, backup, newer, reset, copyprevent, stream, hidden, launchable, recyclable, bundle, or any bit-ORed combination of names or hex numbers. For new databases, the attributes default to 0x0 (none set).
-v version 
The database version. For new databases, this defaults to 1.
-C creation_time 
The time the database was created. Times should be specified using the format [[CC]YY]MMDDHHMM, or using the special keywords now, or never. The former is the current time, that latter is the beginning of PalmOS time (90401010000). For new databases, this defaults to now.
-m last_modification_time 
The time the database was created. For new databases, this defaults to now.
-b last_backup_time 
The time the database was last backed up. For new databases, this defaults to never.

Info Options

The x, c, u, and a modes accept ioptions, and the d mode accepts doptions, which operate on the app and sort info in the database:
-A filename 
AppInfo filename. In x mode, specifies that the database AppInfo should be saved to filename. In c,u, and a modes, specifies that the database AppInfo should be set from filename.
-S filename 
SortInfo filename. In x mode, specifies that the database SortInfo should be saved to filename. In c,u, and a modes, specifies that the database SortInfo should be set from filename.
-A
Delete AppInfo. In d mode, specifies that the database AppInfo should be deleted from the database.
-S
Delete SortInfo. In d mode, specifies that the database SortInfo should be deleted from the database.

Examples

The following example prints the header information for the database 'foo.pdb'.

par h foo.pdb

The following extracts all records from 'foo.pdb'.

par x foo.pdb

The following extracts the application icon resource from 'app.prc' and saves it in the file 'icon.Tbmp'. Note the use of decimal specification for the resource id. The id may be specified in hex using by using the '0x' prefix.

par x app.prc -f icon.Tbmp tAIB 1000

The following creates a new application resource database from all the the files with a '.bin' extension in the current directory. The database will have creator id of 'djwP' and will have the backup bit set.

par c -a "resource|backup" app.prc myapp appl djwP *.bin

If you use the author's technique for creating multi-segment library prcs with CodeWarrior, the following example will be useful. This example uses the touch mode to change the database type to 'libr', and to change the attribute type of the primary code resource from type = 'code', id = '1' (as used in an application) to type = 'libr', id = '0' (as used in a library).

par u -T libr mylib.prc -T libr 0 code 1

The following example merges the resources from two different resource databases, code.prc, and resource.prc into a single target application database, myapp.prc. This technique is useful for managing code and non-code elements of an application, using the individual resource databases as libraries.

par r myapp.prc myapp appl djwP code.prc resource.prc

By default, par saves extracted resources using the form <type><id>.bin, where <type> is the 4 character type of the resource, and <id> is the resource id in 4 digit hexadecimal. When appending resources to a new or existing resource database, par will attempt to decode the resource and id of the resource being appended from the resource filename using this same naming scheme, or you can explicitly specify the resource and id using the -T syntax. Here are two invocations of par that do exactly the same thing: create a new resource database with one resource which has type = NFNT and id = 256 (0x0100 hexadecimal):

par c -a "resource" font.prc Font FONT djwF NFNT0100.bin

par r font.prc Font FONT djwF -T NFNT 256 myfont

The following example creates a stream database that can be accessed using the PalmOS FileStream API. The stream will contain the contents of the file 'WarAndPeace.txt':

par c -a "stream" book.pdb Book DATA djwS WarAndPeace.txt

In the following example, 'book.pdb' is a stream database. This example extracts the stream from that database and stores the result in the output file 'Book.txt':

par x book.pdb Book.txt

Author

par was written by David Williams, djw@djw.org

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