Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.misc
Subject: Problems with afio?
Keywords: afio
Message-ID: <12307@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 5 Oct 88 14:23:02 GMT
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp. R & D, Schenectady,NY
Lines: 38


  Having just gotten a posting about afio, I dusted off my old copy,
added a patch I've been saving, and tried it out again. I found some
limitations, which may be because I'm not doing it right, the docs don't
mention the feature, or I have an old version. If these are real
limitations (I can't call them bugs in fairness) I guess I stay with
cpio.

1) How to restore a single file? In cpio I say "cpio -ic file < archive"
   and only "file" is restored, with some versions supporting a quoted
   wildcard name as well. I can't seem to do this with afio, and I really
   can't restore 15+MB from a tape to get one back.

2) The -n (save new files) option saves new files, but seems to restore
   the file if it has the same date. This changes the ctime, and makes the
   restore run very slowly.

3) The -x option doesn't seem to work unless you a root. Since I can
   change owner and "give away" a file, this can be done on a user restore
   as well. If this is done as user any setuid bits are cleared.

4) There was one place where NULL was used instead of int zero. This
   caused complaints about comparing an int and pointer. In ANSI C NULL is
   a macro expanding to a pointer constant. I fixed that one to get a
   compile.

Am I missing something, or will everyone say "fix it and post the
diffs?" Having fixed (4) already, I could do the others, but if I have
an old version perhaps someone could point to an ftp or uucp server
which has the current version.

Respond by mail or post depending on the public interest of your reply.

                                 Thanks
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me