The tool is used from the command line with the python interpreter:

python apxutil.py -h

usage: apxutil.py [-h] [-f filaname-apx] [-F filaname-sta] [-e dir] [-E dir] [-a manifestpath] [-A manifestpath] [-d]
                  [-x] [-B] [-r]

Tool to manipulate Schneider Electric .sta and .apx files

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -f, --apxfile filaname-apx
                        .apx file to read or write
  -F, --stafile filaname-sta
                        .sta file to read or write
  -e, --extract-apx dir
                        extract contents of the Station.apx file
  -E, --extract-sta dir
                        extract contents of the .sta file
  -a, --assemble-apx manifestpath
                        create Station.apx file based on apx_manifest.ini
  -A, --assemble-sta manifestpath
                        create a .sta file from files in sta_manifest.ini
  -d, --decompress      decompress Station.apx sections that are compressed
  -x, --hexdump         print hexdump of Station.apx with header information
  -B, --include-apd     include Station.apd when creating .sta archive
  -r, --restart-offsets
                        restart offsets at 0 for each section in hexdump print (useful for diffing)

The help should be failry self-explanatory. Generally, short-hand options with capital letters work on .sta files, and lower case letters work on .apx files. A few examples of usage is given below.

To extract the contents of a .sta file to directory "extracted", you would use:

python apxutil.py -F archive.sta -E extracted

To extract the contents of Station.apx to directory "contents", you would use:

python apxutil.py -f extracted/BinAppli/Station.apx -e contents -d

The "-d" option means compressed sections will be decompressed, but can be left out if (all) raw section data is wanted.

To reassemble Station.apx, you would use:

python apxutil.py -f extracted/BinAppli/Station.apx -a contents

This will assemble the Station.apx based on the apx_manifest.ini found in the contents directory, compressing section data if it was previously decompressed. Section sizes and CRC:s will be recalculated, and not read from the apx_manifest.ini.

To reassemble a .sta file, you would use:

python apxutil.py -F modified-archive.sta -A extracted

This will by default omit the Station.apd file (which appears to be mainly a integrity check for the Station.apx file header). If you want that included, add the "-B" option. But that may very well mean that Control Expert Classic will fail to open the project archive file.

To directly "view" the contents of the Station.apx file, the following command can be used:

python apxutil.py -F modified-archive.sta -x

This will output a "canonical hexdump" of the Station.apx file, meaning you see the offsets, hex data, and ASCII data, 16 bytes at a time, including the metadata. The "-d" option can be used to decompress compressed sections (but beware that the offsets make little sense in that case). The "-r" option can be used to restart the offset at 0 for every section. This is useful if you have made changes and want to be able to "diff" them without offsets.