&tde-authors; &tde-release-version; Reviewed: &tde-release-date; &tde-copyright-date; &tde-team; This handbook describes the ar protocol. TDE ar protocol An archiving program designed to store and extract files. Today ar generally is used only to create and update static library files that the link editor or linker uses. For other purposes ar is replaced by tar and other compression methods. Source: Wikipedia Read the man page: ar.