On Thu, 13 Nov 1997, Brad Salai wrote:

> tar -zxvpf bin.tar.gz   works, but
> 
> tar -zxvfp bin.tar.gz   doesn't
> 
> Once you know this, only the occasional tyop causes problems, but why does
> it have to be that way?

tar has it's own getopt(3), which doesn't behave quite the same way as for
some other utilities you're used to.  in particular, the argument for an
option must immediately follow the option.

hopefully we get rid of GNU tar soon... (hi matt!)

> 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 is how it has always been...  from ftp(1):

     prompt      Toggle interactive prompting.  Interactive prompting occurs
                 during multiple file transfers to allow the user to selec-
                 tively retrieve or store files.  If prompting is turned off
                 (default is on), any mget or mput will transfer all files,
                 and any mdelete will delete all files.
		[...]

RT(W)FM -- read the (whole) fine manpage ;-)

--scott