On Mon, Feb 18, 2002 at 06:46:14PM -0800, Alvin Oga wrote: ... > if coping vfat files... you've got to use find /vfat -print | tar .. -T - > so solve the problems wiht "tom's budget for $$$ next year" type filenames
I first though, yep should keep that in mind. But then I realized that it's only partly true. As long as you don't have those strange file names unquoted on the commandline you're fine, as tar is quit capable of dealing whith strange filenames when they are properly quoted on the commandline. And tar surely has no problems dealing with strange filenames that tar himself reads from disk. so the following should work given dir spam with file spam&spam: $ tar -cf spam.tar spam $ tar -cf 'spam&spam'.tar 'spam/spam&spam' The second line is errorprone, but as long as you're sure that the toplevel dirs you're using on the tar commandline are sane there really should be no problem with strange filenames way down in the hiearchy. -- groetjes, carel