[ On Mon, May 11, 1998 at 16:16:10 (-0500), Christofer C. Bell wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Source distributions vs. patches
>
> Stan Brown wrote:
> > >> zcat $distfile | ( cd /usr/src | tar --unlink -xvpf - )
> > 
> >         Wouldn't that be gunzip $distfile | ( cd /usr/src | tar --unlink -xvpf
> >         - )
> > 
> >         ?
> > 
> 
> Actually, I suppose it would be more correct to phrase it either as:
> 
> gunzip -c $distfile | ( cd /usr/src | tar --unlink -xvpf - )
> 
> or 
> 
> gzip -dc $distfile | ( cd /usr/src | tar --unlink -xvpf - ) 
> 
> Since the -c option is required to unzip to standard out.

It would be possibly slightly more efficient (I've not peeked at the
'-z' implementation, so I may be way off here, but generally I'd expect
avoiding the pipeline to help out), and much easier to read, to just do
it like this:

	cd /usr/src
	tar --unlink -xzpf $distfile

(the '-v' probably isn't necessary, and can actually slow things down
significantly for folks using serial consoles, or very slow console code
on the likes of suns, etc.)

I suppose it might be even better to recommend using pax:

	cd /usr/src
	pax -rzf $distfile

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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