#1312 Incomplete description of -si and -so switches

[Shell]

As I have understood during discussion in Open Discussion->7z a si + so, the -si switch is used for two somewhat different purposes: 1) to compress standard input into an archive and 2) to use standard input as an archive to process. I think it should be clarified in the help file. On the other hand, this switch is not mentioned in extraction commands (and I have not found the -seml switch under the addition command either) though these commands are present in the description of the switch. Similarly, if the -so switch is used for extraction, it should be stated whether only one file can be extracted to stdout (I suspect 7-Zip does not support concatenating files this way).

Here are my suggestions (in capitals) for the -si help page.

Causes 7-Zip to read data from stdin (standard input) instead of from disc files. THE DATA CAN BE EITHER A SINGLE ARCHIVE TO EXTRACT/LIST/TEST FILES FROM OR A SINGLE FILE FOR ADDING TO ARCHIVE OR CALCULATING A HASH. THE MEANING OF THE -SI SWITCH IS DETERMINED BY THE COMMAND USED.

{file_name} Specifies a name OF A FILE that will be stored in the archive for the compressed data. If file_name is not specified, data will be stored without a name. IF AN ARCHIVE IS READ FROM STDIN, NEITHER FILE_NAME NOR ARCHIVE NAME IS USED.

Note: The current version of 7-Zip support reading of archives from stdin only for xz, lzma, tar, gzip and bzip2 archives, AND ADDING FILES FROM STDIN ONLY FOR 7Z,XZ, GZIP AND BZIP2 ARCHIVES.
NOTE: WHEN ADDING A FILE FROM STDIN, THE -SDEL SWITCH CANNOT BE USED.

[Ben Johnson]

+1 to the submitter's comment. (And thank you for the articulate explanation of the switches, u_shell.)

I looked all over for this information before finding it here.