Subject: Re: tar arguments
To: None <conklin@kaleida.com>
From: Alistair G. Crooks <agc@uts.amdahl.com>
List: netbsd-bugs
Date: 01/20/1994 00:38:21
I haven't seen the original of this article, so I'm only commenting on
the followup.

> dgy> "INSTALLATION NOTES for NetBSD/i386" reference the following
> dgy> commands to list and extract the contents of the distribution
> dgy> archives, respectively:
> dgy> 	cat set_name.??? | gunzip | tar tf -
> dgy> 	cat set_name.??? | gunzip | tar xvfp -
> dgy> Instead, these should read:
> dgy> 	cat set_name.??? | gunzip | tar -tf -
> dgy> 	cat set_name.??? | gunzip | tar -xvpf - (order of f & p reversed!)
> 
> Historically tar has not used '-' to indicate command line options.
> Modern versions of tar, including GNU tar (which we are using), allow
> either syntax.

The GNU tar that NetBSD uses allows the use of the 'z' argument to
indicate that the archive is a compressed one, so can anyone see why
the extraction command shouldn't be modified to read :

	cat set_name.* | tar xvzfp - 

Purely in the interest of less typos, you understand.

Alistair
--
Alistair G. Crooks (agc@uts.amdahl.com)			     +44 252 346377
Amdahl European HQ, Dogmersfield Park, Hartley Wintney, Hants RG27 8TE, UK.

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