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From: jsdy@hadron.uucp (Joseph S. D. Yao)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: tar or cpio?
Message-ID: <8023@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-May-87 09:14:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.8023
Posted: Tue May 12 09:14:24 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 15-May-87 01:07:04 EDT
References: <8001@ut-sally.UUCP> <8006@ut-sally.UUCP>
Sender: std-unix@ut-sally.UUCP
Reply-To: jsdy@hadron.uucp (Joseph S. D. Yao)
Organization: Hadron, Inc., Fairfax, VA
Lines: 25
Approved: jsq@sally.utexas.edu (Moderator, John Quarterman)
Summary: cpio pre-dates tar.  (not an argument for)

In article <8006@ut-sally.UUCP> guy@sun.com (Guy Harris) writes:
>	3) It is less common.  Almost all UNIX systems that support
>	   "cpio" also support "tar"; many UNIX systems that support
>	   "tar" do not support "cpio".

Guy's arguments are mostly good, especially when reasoning about
the byte-order problem.  It should perhaps be noted, though, that
cpio pre-dates tar, and that there are probably numerous systems
"out there" that have cpio but not tar.  This, at least, seems to
be one of the arguments used by X/OPEN.

Of course, terms like "numerous", "almost all", and "many" are
hard to argue against, because they're so fuzzy.

Personally, I have found good use for both (cpio -p is rather
more elegant than the 2-tar equivalent kludge).  However, I have
had minutely more foul-ups with cpio than with tar.  (At least,
with current versions of tar.)

	Joe Yao		jsdy@hadron.COM (not yet domainised)
	hadron!jsdy@{seismo.CSS.GOV,dtix.ARPA,decuac.DEC.COM}
{arinc,att,avatar,cos,decuac,dtix,ecogong,kcwc}!hadron!jsdy
     {netex,netxcom,rlgvax,seismo,smsdpg,sundc}!hadron!jsdy

Volume-Number: Volume 11, Number 22