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From: jsdy@hadron.uucp (Joseph S. D. Yao)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: tar or cpio?  Tar, of course!
Message-ID: <8044@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-May-87 10:48:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.8044
Posted: Wed May 13 10:48:51 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 16-May-87 12:13:55 EDT
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Reply-To: jsdy@hadron.uucp (Joseph S. D. Yao)
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Approved: jsq@sally.utexas.edu (Moderator, John Quarterman)

From: jsdy@hadron.uucp (Joseph S. D. Yao)

This is getting a bit far from UNIX/POSIX standards, but:

In letter <8705122317.AA00613@icst-cmr.arpa.ARPA> rbj@icst-cmr.ARPA (Root Boy Jim) writes:
>In article <8018@ut-sally.UUCP> rbj@icst-cmr.arpa writes:
>>			... I have had troubles reading the original
>>TPC V6 & V7 distribution tapes under 4.2 BSD.
>Ok, the joke's on me. I'll try dump. Now on to Joe Yao's articles.

Dump won't work either.  If I remember correctly, the first two blocks
(on V6) were boot blocks for two different tape drives, followed by
some stand-alone programs, and (perhaps in the next file) an IMAGE of
a V6 file system.  Then there were mixtures of disk images and tp tape
files.  V7 I'm not sure about; but as tar started (slightly buggy) in
V7, I vaguely recall that the distribution tapes were  n o t  in tar
format, either.  I may not be right about that last.

Note, BTW, that the V6 file system is not mountable on a V7 or later
system, including all current Berkeley and USG releases.

>? >I would also like to see an option not to cross mount points, that is
>? >stay on the same partition. This should be added to several major utilities.
>?		... this is awfully hard to do unless you are willing
>? to break modularity by sticking info about the FS into programs
>? which have no need to know about it whatsoever.
>Find on BSD4.3 has -xdev, and others have -prune. It is often desirable
>to restrict searches to a single file system. Besides, to unmount /usr,
>you have to kill all the daemons, and then the only editor you  have is ed.

My statement stands.  Berkeley is  n o t  the best reference for proper
modularisation.  Find needs to know about a heckuva nawful lot, but it
would perhaps be desirable to have more general-purpose tools.

>? In article <8006@ut-sally.UUCP> guy@sun.com (Guy Harris) writes:
>? >			  ...  Almost all UNIX systems that support
>? >	   "cpio" also support "tar"; ...
>?			..  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.
>Saying cpio predates tar might be strictly true, but tar hit the streets 
>first. Do you know of any UNII that have cpio but not tar?

I believe, Doctor McCoy, that that is what I just said.  Yes, cpio
hit the streets first, in PWB System 1.0, and in all of its descen-
dants, yeah down unto System III and System V Release 3.0 Version
1.1.  Those first few releases had no tar.  (I know, what held them
together then?)

And it's UNIXI, not UNII.  (Finally, something about standards, eh?)

From: hadron!jsdy@seismo.css.gov (Joseph S. D. Yao)
Subject: Re: tar or cpio?  Tar, of course!

Please amend prior letter.

It is neither UNIXI nor UNII, but Unices.

Thank you.	;-)

	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 26