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From: stratton@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Jim Stratton)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: tar question ...
Message-ID: <6340004@hpcupt1.HP.COM>
Date: 29 Aug 89 21:17:52 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 18

I bet there is a simple answer to this tar question, but after having RTFM,
I can't figure out a solution.  In order to make my backups smaller in 
size, I compress the tar image using something like this:
      	tar cf - [files] | compress -c >/tmp/xxx
      	cd /tmp; tar c xxx; rm xxx
Unfortunately, this method requires that I maintain enough free disk space to 
hold the /tmp/xxx file.  What I want to do is pipe the output of compress
directly into tar, avoiding the tmp file altogether.  Something like:
	tar cf - [files] | compress -c | tar c ...
Anyone know what flags I can use to convince tar that I want it to backup  
from standard input?
As an alternative to tar, I've tried piping compress to dd but always get
an error writing to the output device.

I am running Xenix/386 2.3.1 if it matters.
Thanks for any and all help!

- Jim Stratton		stratton@hpcupt1.hp.com