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From: cws@janus.Quotron.com (Craig W. Shaver)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: multi-volume tar
Summary: use the source luke ...
Keywords: format
Message-ID: <595@janus.Quotron.com>
Date: 28 Aug 90 21:55:57 GMT
References: <7920@lynx.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Quotron Systems Inc., Los Angeles
Lines: 28

In article <7920@lynx.UUCP>, m5@lynx.uucp (Mike McNally) writes:
> Apparently, Interactive System V (and SCO and AIX) tar on 386 PC machines
> allows multi-diskette tar archives.  I'm looking for information on if and
> how tar marks volumes; is there a special volume header block?
> 
> Thanks.
> 

The tar header has a lot of room at the bottom for people to put non-standard
things.  See the GNU tar also, and especially the old pdtar posted to the
net eons ago.  I have hacked at the pdtar a little to make it work like the
Xenix version (same as the 386/v3.2 version) but not finished yet.  The GNU
uses the same area for different things and I need to come up with a way of
making GNU use multi-volume and still be compatible.  I am leaning towards
makeing it a switch option.  

Anyway, if you look in the file format man pages you should see the tar header
layout there.  It is in the Xenix man pages. They just add a couple of fields
to tell you the number of extents and some such.

	Craig W. Shaver

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