Don Cragun wrote:
>> Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:54:47 -0800
>> From: John Plocher <john.plocher at gmail.com>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Don Cragun <don.cragun at sun.com> wrote:
>>
>>> But this uses ustar/pax format archives. That won't satisfy the
>>> customer for that filed the escalation to get this fix. They insist on
>>> a fix using cpio format archives.
>>>
>> With this fix, these archives will no longer be "cpio format
>> archives", but instead
>> they will be "Sun Proprietary CPIO format archives".
>>
>
> Yes and no. They are still standards conforming cpio format archives.
> If cpio is asked to archive sparse files while using one of these new
> -H option-argumments, the archive will contain entries for file types
> that many archivers will not recognize.
>
> You may have noticed that the 1990 standard reserved three values
> (C_ISCTG, C_ISLNK, and C_ISSOCK) that many implementations of cpio
> could not handle at that time. C_ISCTG is still reserved without
> definition in the current standards.
>
>
>> That is, the customer will not be able to extract "holey" files as holey
>> files
>> on non-Sun systems, rendering this a proprietary solution.
>>
>> Is there a plan to add this support to non-Sun archivers?
>>
>
> No. Since cpio format archives are by definition limited to files
> smaller than 8Gb, we aren't spending a lot of time extending and
> supporting the format (other than for customer escalations like this
> one). There is enough detail in this case for others to recreate
> sparse files in this format and to create archives containing sparse
> files in this format if there is demand.
>
> The project team will add a note to the spio man page stating that the
> -H ascii_sparse and odc_sparse option-arguments should not be used for
> portable archives.
>
Given these limitations, I wonder if it makes sense to mark these
options and the file format Uncomitted. (Maybe you did in the original,
I don't recall.) We have little other way that I can think of to
politely steer customers away from this and towards something that is
free from the limitations. (Well, there is Committed Obsolete, I
suppose....)
-- Garrett
