Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!usc!randvax!news
From: edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: Interactive and tape drives
Message-ID: <1989Oct27.184405.3493@rand.org>
Date: 27 Oct 89 18:44:05 GMT
References: <387@rsiatl.UUCP>
Sender: news@rand.org
Reply-To: edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall)
Organization: The RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA
Lines: 14

In article <387@rsiatl.UUCP> root@rsiatl.UUCP (Admin) writes:
>I have read elsewhere in the documentation (sorry, could not find for this
>post) that a buffered tape device does not return a reliable EOT.  This
>is echoed in the documents of AFIO.

This is true for all UNIX systems I know of, including Interactive's:
the buffered (block) version of a device will not return a reliable
end-of-media.  You must use the raw (character) device.  It's easy
to see why--the system can have several buffers already queued when
the EOM hits.  Even though the user successfully ``wrote'' those
buffers, they'll never make it onto the tape.

		-Ed Hall
		edhall@rand.org