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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!orca!tekecs!doghouse!snoopy
From: snoopy@doghouse.gwd.tek.com (Snoopy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.unix.questions,comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: tar or cpio?
Keywords: tar,cpio,archivers
Message-ID: <9717@tekecs.TEK.COM>
Date: 4 Feb 88 16:21:43 GMT
References: <246@mancol.UUCP>
Sender: nobody@tekecs.TEK.COM
Reply-To: snoopy@doghouse.gwd.tek.com (Snoopy)
Organization: The Daisy Hill Puppy Farm
Lines: 24

In article <246@mancol.UUCP> samperi@mancol.UUCP (Dominick Samperi) writes:
>I've heard that cpio will be used as the unix standard archiver, yet
>many people seem to prefer tar.

- Tar needs fewer options to do what I want it to do.

- Tar handles symbolic links.  Most implementations of cpio don't.
  (I added this to UTek's cpio.  Great fun.)

- The code for tar is nice and clean, easy to figure out, return codes are
  checked for errors, etc.  The code for cpio is a mess.  => I trust tar
  farther than I trust cpio.  (If you are writing your own from scratch
  this isn't a consideration.)

- Most implementations of tar don't handle multiple volumes. (I haven't
  checked John's PD tar, perhaps it does?)  If it doesn't fit on one
  volume, you're stuck with cpio or using one of those multivolume
  programs.

Snoopy
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