Question About 'ar' Output

[Jon Forrest <nobozo@gmail.com>]

(GNU ar version 2.37-10.fc35)

As a learning exercise, I'm trying to duplicate some of what
the 'ar' command does. (There's nothing wrong with 'ar').

I have a .a library that ar shows has the following content:

% ar t libctf.a
libctf_la-ctf-archive.o
libctf_la-ctf-dump.o
libctf_la-ctf-create.o
libctf_la-ctf-decl.o
libctf_la-ctf-error.o
libctf_la-ctf-hash.o
libctf_la-ctf-labels.o
[rest omitted]

When I run my test program I see
/
//
/0
/25
/47
/71
/93
[rest omitted]

When I look at my .a library using 'od' I can see the names starting
with '/' characters. I can also see the names starting with 'libctf'.

I don't understand what the slash names are, nor how they're mapped to
the real names. I tried looking at the 'ar' source code but I didn't
see anything that jumped out at me.

What am I missing?

Cordially,
Jon Forrest