Hello all, The documentation for GNU tar suggests that multiple archives can be appended onto an existing archive.
e.g. tar --concatenate --file=first.tar append1.tar append2.tar However I find that I must append the archives one by one in order to get the desired output in the merged tar file. Here is set of commands illustrating the problem: ---------- $ echo start > start $ echo one > one $ echo two > two $ tar cf first.tar start $ tar cf second.tar start $ tar cf append1.tar one $ tar cf append2.tar two $ tar --concatenate --file=first.tar append1.tar append2.tar $ tar --concatenate --file=second.tar append1.tar $ tar --concatenate --file=second.tar append2.tar $ tar tf first.tar start one $ tar tf second.tar start one two ------------------ I would expect both first.tar and second.tar to have the same contents. The problem is first.tar doesn't list file "two". However examining the contents of the file reveals that "append2.tar" has been added, but the content is not retrievable. $ cat -v first.tar | grep two Here's the documentation I read: http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html#SEC58 The text includes "name the rest of archives to be concatenated on the command line". Because "archives" is plural, this suggests to me that multiple tar files can be concatenated in one tar command. To me it looks like either the documentation should be clarified or there's a bug in GNU tar. Hopefully someone in this list can help decide which explanation is appropriate. Thank you, Paul Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
