Package: cpio
Version: 2.6-17
Severity: normal

In the info page, we have the following switches defined for the various
modes:

`-i, --extract'
     Run in copy-in mode

`-o, --create'
     Run in copy-out mode.

`-p, --pass-through'
     Run in copy-pass mode.


While I think copy-in and copy-out are the opposite of what I think they
logically should be, the problem is with the --sparse option and it's
description.  Either the info page is wrong or `cpio` is 'slighly
broken'.

The info page states:

`--sparse'
     Write files with large blocks of zeros as sparse files.  This
     option is used in copy-in and copy-pass modes.



...but in practice that's not the case..


darkside:/bin# ls |cpio -o > /tmp/cpioarchive
7976 blocks
darkside:/bin# cpio -i --sparse < /tmp/cpioarchive
cpio: --sparse is meaningless with --extract



...and contrary to what the info page states, --sparse is accepted in copy-out
mode:

darkside:/bin# ls |cpio -o --sparse > /tmp/cpioarchive
7976 blocks



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (600, 'testing'), (500, 'testing-proposed-updates'), (50, 
'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.19-cks2
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages cpio depends on:
ii  libc6                        2.3.6.ds1-8 GNU C Library: Shared libraries

cpio recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

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