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The new archiving tool SAPCAR

Updated May 19, 2018

Use always the newest available SAPCAR release compatible to your operating system. You can download a patched version of SAPCAR from the SAP Service Marketplace: http://service.sap.com/patches -> Support Packages and Patches -> Browse Our Download Catalog -> Additional Components -> SAPCAR. Then add the SAPCAR version for your OS to the Download Basket.

Note that the downloadable file is tagged with the .exe extension for all OS platforms because of software center naming conventions. On UNIX platforms you have to delete the extension and to rename the file to SAPCAR because this is the official tool name which is known by other SAP tools on UNIX platforms. The downloadable file is not compressed so you may run it without extracting it before.

As of R/3 Release 4.6C, the new archiving tool SAPCAR replaces the previous archiving tool CAR. This results in some special considerations listed below.

  • According to the replacement of CAR, the extension of the archive files delivered by SAP changes from '.CAR' to '.SAR' for files concerning R/3 Release 4.6C or higher.
  • The command line interface of SAPCAR is downward compatible with the command line interface of CAR. The only two exceptions to this are:

    During extraction, SAPCAR checks the file name extensions of the archives you want to extract from. The extensions '.CAR' and '.SAR' are both valid.

    The option '-s' for checking the free space on the target filesystem is only valid for displaying the contents of an archive. The option is no longer valid for extracting files. For example, the command 'SAPCAR -tsf ARCIVE.SAR' is valid, but the command 'SAPCAR -xsf ARCHIVE.SAR' is invalid.
  • Pay attention to the fact that the archive format changed for SAPCAR. You can not use CAR with archives created by SAPCAR. On the other hand, you can use SAPCAR to extract, check, or list the content of archives created by CAR. But it is not possible to create CAR archives with SAPCAR.
  • On some platforms, SAPCAR requires certain dynamic C++ program libraries. These libraries are possibly not part of the standard installation of your operating system. In this case, you need to install them before using SAPCAR. Possible platforms where manual installation of these C++ runtime libraries may be required, are:

    SunOS 5.6 (Solaris 2.6): You possibly need to install the latest patch that includes the package SUNWlibC. All other SunOS releases contain the required runtime libraries. Use the command 'pkginfo | fgrep -i SUNWlibC' to check if C++ runtime libraries are installed.

    HP-UX: You possibly need a patch containing the HP C++ runtime libraries. Since March 1997 HP delivers these patches worldwide every two months on an Extension Software CD to CD-ROM customers of HP with support  (see http://www.hp.com/esy/lang/cpp/faq.html). Use the command '/usr/sbin/swlist -l product | fgrep -i PHSS | fgrep -i aC++ | fgrep -i runtime' to check which C++ runtime environment is installed.

    Sinix/ReliantUNIX: You possibly need to install the C++ runtime environment. The package CDS++RTS version 2.0C is required. Use the command 'pkginfo -l CDS++RTS' to check which C++ runtime system version is installed.
  • In case you want to run the unicode version of SAPCAR the shared library libsapu16.<lib ext> is needed (where "lib ext" is one of "dll", "so", "sl" or "o"). Make sure that this library resides in the search path of the program loader of your operating system. Normally this library can be found on the kernel CD.
  • For more information regarding the handling of SAPCAR, type 'SAPCAR' at the command prompt.
     


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