Make a BagIt archive

The Bash script make_bagit makes an archive of a folder, according to the BagIt File Packaging Format, as designed by the Library of Congress and standardised under RFC 8493. This can be achieved either by transforming a folder into a BagIt archive (this is faster) or by creating a new BagIt archive containing the folder (this is slower). The program is part of Bash AVpres, released under a 3-Clause BSD License and provided “as is” without warranty or support of any kind.

Documentation

A short help message is embedded into the script:

$ make_bagit -h

Usage:
  make_bagit -b <input_folder> | -i <input_folder> -o <output_folder>
  make_bagit -h | -x
Options:
  -b  replace the input folder by its BagIt archive
  -i  input folder
  -o  output BagIt archive folder
  -h  this help
  -x  advanced options with their default arguments
      (local configuration file found and loaded)
Default dependencies:
  gcp; one of sha512sum (default), md5sum, sha1sum, sha256sum, xxhsum or crc32
See also:
  man make_bagit
  https://avpres.net/Bash_AVpres/
About:
  Abstract: Make a BagIt archive of a folder, according to RFC 8493
  Version:  2026-01-02

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A detailed manual page is installed together with the script (man make_bagit) and is available also as a PDF file.

2026-01-03