"Shawn Walker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 27/06/07, Joerg Schilling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > "Shawn Walker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > It would be possible to implement a Sun tar command-line mode would it
> > > not?
> > >
> > > Something like, if star is invoked as /usr/bin/tar, it would operate
> > > exactly like Sun tar used to?
> > >
> > > Would that allow its replacement?
> >
> > Except for some minor differences, it already does.
>
> Which is why I said *exactly* :)
>
> So, what would it take to implement what's missing?
It depends...
There are undocumented features in Sun's tar. Let me give some examples:
- multi volume archives. This feature from Sun tar is undocumented
and it does not work well (e.g. no support for autodetecting
tape size with compressing tape drives). The related archive format
extension violates POSIX.1-1988 ... POSIX.1-2001
Star implements a multi volume feature (using a different but
documented archive format extension - compatible to POSIX) that
deals with all known problems and wishes.
It may be possible to implement the Sun feature in extract mode.
It makes no sense to implement it in create mode.
- -@ is implemented using obsolete (and not vendor tagged) POSIX.1-1988
extensions that use a lot of quirks. This option is a big eception
as it documents it's archive format! I do not like to implement this
at all but rather start a discussion on how to implement support for
archiving extended attribute files using clean POSIX.1-2001 based
tar extensions.
- -T This option omplements a completely undocumented archive format.
I cannot even discuss it, except that it is also based on obsolete (and
not vendor tagged) POSIX.1-1988 extensions.
This list is nearly complete, there are some more undocumented features that do
not live in visible options but in undocumented behavior in case of specific
usage.
I could look whether I find a complete list of undocumented features/behavior.
Jörg
--
EMail:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (uni)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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