Subject: Re: broken pipe with tar
To: None <netbsd-bugs@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Geoff Wing <mason@primenet.com.au>
List: netbsd-bugs
Date: 01/06/1998 15:58:03
Hubert Feyrer <hubert.feyrer@rrzc1.rz.uni-regensburg.de> typed:
:> The new version is almost fine.  However, when I do
:> 	tar xvfz some_archives.tgz
:> command, I met the following errors:
:> gzip: stdout: Broken pipe
:> tar: Child returned status 1
:> tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
:It looks as if gzip has some problem uncompressing your some_archive.tgz 
:- try a "gzip -vt some_archive.tgz" to see if it's not broken (e.g. by 
:downloading in type ASCII, network lossage, ...).

This has been/is being discussed in current-users mailing list with
Subject: tar problem?

Charles M. Hannum typed in current-users:
:This is vaguely correct behaviour.  The tar format uses a record of
:all 0s as a terminator, so when tar(1) sees it, it cleans up and
:exits.  If the tar file was originally written with a larger block
:size, you may not read all of the 0s at the end before tar(1) exits,
:which would leave gzip(1) with a broken pipe to write the rest of them
:to.
-- 
Geoff Wing [gcw@pobox.com]                         Phone    : +61-3-9818 2977
 Technical Manager: PrimeNet Computer Consultants  Facsimile: +61-3-9818 5155
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