On Thu, 13 Nov 1997, Brad Salai wrote:

: There is a thing about tar that makes it slightly harder to use than it
: might otherwise be.
: 
: You have to get the options in the right order,
: tar -zxvpf bin.tar.gz   works, but
: tar -zxvfp bin.tar.gz   doesn't

Ah, but "tar zxvfp bin.tar.gz" does.  Why?  Tar's historical options were
given *without* the dash prepended, and in one block of letters before the
argument to the 'f' option.  If you do choose to use the dash, you have to
follow getopt(3) option conventions--that is, the argument to '-f' must
directly follow '-f' whether separated by a space or not.  In "tar -zxvfp
bin.tar.gz", the filename would be interpreted as "p".  (I personally use
historic syntax because I've used it for so long.)

: As for ftp, mget is a nice idea, but it asks you to confirm that you still
: want  each file as it comes up. This makes it impossible to just get a
: collection of files, either by matching a pattern, or listing the files,
: without sitting there.

Use the ftp command: 'prompt off'

=====
== Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Business tv@lucent.com)
== So you know what, Mikey?  Go to bed.