Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!nuug!ifi!barsoom!tih
From: tih@barsoom.nhh.no (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: 1.5.5 tar
Keywords: problems
Message-ID: <763@barsoom.nhh.no>
Date: 7 Apr 90 14:06:45 GMT
References: <613@unicorn.WWU.EDU> <4038@plains.UUCP>
Organization: Norwegian School of Economics
Lines: 20

overby@plains.UUCP (Glen Overby) writes:
>In article <613@unicorn.WWU.EDU> phil@unicorn.WWU.EDU (Phil Nelson) writes:
>>IBM XT).  I was using tar and vol to back up my hard disk.  Tar started
>>generating a message "Out of memory" before every file it was reading.
>
>tar keeps a record of every file it archives, probably to keep tabs on
>hard-linked files so that it will only write out one copy of the file (the
>subsequent copies will simply be references to the first one).

This is downright unnecessary: Tar should only keep track of those
files it has written that have a link-count greater than one.  In
addition, it should decrement it when it writes a "linked to" record
in the archive, so that it can free up the memory once all links have
been accounted for.  That's the way I did it when I changed the 1.2
tar to be suitable for backups, anyway.

-tih
-- 
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo, NHH, Bergen, Norway.  Telephone: +47-5-959205
tih@barsoom.nhh.no, thelbekk@norunit.bitnet, edb_tom@debet.nhh.no