Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!jik
From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: tar from a disk (not tape)
Keywords: tar
Message-ID: <11286@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 10 May 89 12:32:44 GMT
References: <1517@cmx.npac.syr.edu> <830@sunkisd.CS.Concordia.CA>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 33

In article <830@sunkisd.CS.Concordia.CA> yoly@maxwell.Concordia.Ca writes:
>You should try:
>
>	cat gugu.tar | tar xvf -
>
>That command lets you restore tar files from a "tar file" :-)

  And you should try:

* Reading the answers that have already been posted to a question
  before posting an answer yourself (admittedly, you may not have
  gotten the other answers yet at your site, but I doubt that, since
  we got this one pretty quickly).
* Reading the man page for tar or in some other way getting a clue.

  I should probably explain more specifically what I mean by the
second item above, so I will.  The 'f' option to tar specifies,
according to the man page for tar, "the name of the archive instead of
/dev/rmt?."  Furthermore, "If the name of the file is `-', tar writes
to standard output or reads from standard input, whichever is
appropriate."

  Therefore, the command you gave will work, surely.  However, let me
ask you this.... why shouldn't the person who asked the question just
use "tar xvf gugu.tar?"

Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				410 Memorial Drive, No. 223F
jik@Athena.MIT.EDU				Cambridge, MA 02139-4318
Office: 617-253-4261			      Home: 617-225-8218

"People who haven't read man pages shouldn't play with the 'f' key in
			comp.unix.questions."