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From: mark@tove.UUCP (Mark Weiser)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: TAR DOES NOT SWAP BYTES
Message-ID: <341@tove.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Oct-85 11:43:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: tove.341
Posted: Tue Oct  8 11:43:29 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Oct-85 07:46:50 EDT
References: <235@thunder.UUCP> <604@neuro1.UUCP> <2818@sun.uucp> <4653@amdcad.UUCP> <1970@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: mark@tove.UUCP (Mark Weiser)
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 21

> If you create a tar 'file' (not tape), and transfer it between systems
> the file will require byte swapping between big-endian and little endian
> machines.  

I just happened to have a ready-made experiment, having just
tared, moved, and then untared a directory from a vax (little-endian) to a
pyramid (big-endian).  File was moved with rcp.  I tried untaring
a file at the vax end, cmp'd the results with a file untared at the pyramid
end and then rcp'd back, and the files were identical.  Of course
rcp could have swapped the bytes back during the xfer before the cmp,
but how could it have known I was going to do a cmp?

In other words, TAR DOES NOT SWAP BYTES (nor should it, nor should
anyone else need them to be swapped when xfering files).
	-mark


-- 
Spoken: Mark Weiser 	ARPA:	mark@maryland	Phone: +1-301-454-7817
CSNet:	mark@umcp-cs 	UUCP:	{seismo,allegra}!umcp-cs!mark
USPS: Computer Science Dept., University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742