[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed Jun 13 14:55:48 2001
>
> >> As you can see, the files are identical, although tar was not able to list
> >> them.
> >>
> >> Further, I tried your mk and mk2 scripts with tar and star. You are right,
> >> star is able to process file names which are not POSIX conformant while tar
> >> fails on those files.
> >>
> >> Conclusion (for me): Nothing bad at all. While GNU tar has problems with
> >> very long file names and also fails to list a POSIX correct tar archive,
> >> it's nothing I'd worry about. As long as files are extracted correctly, I'm
> >> fine.
>
> >
> >Yes, I have also noticed that star creates files with portability
> >problems. For that reason I avoid using it for backups, which I might
> >have to use on machines without star.
>
>
> GNU tar is _the_ program with portability problems! This is the fact.
GNU tar creates files which can be read by every system I have tried.
Without problems, without errors, without even warnings. On the other
hand, star creates archives which do not work without problems on all
common systems.
By my definition that makes star archives less portable. They may
conform to standards, but they don't work properly on as many systems as
GNU tar. do understand I'm talking about portability, not conformance. I
would never deliberately create an archive which I knew would not work
properly on some common systems, at least if my goal was to make the
information freely and easily available.
> The bad result of this fact is that Sun is using more and more *.zip archives
> beacause people are using GNU tar, are unwilling to accept that there
> is a GNu tar compatibility problem and complain about exptraction
> problems....
If Sun chooses to use zip, which is far less common than tar, rather
than build archives with GNU tar, which seems to work everywhere, that
is their own (probably bad) decision. Note my name listed as a
contributor to both Info-ZIP and zoo archiver projects, I am obviously
not blindly favoring GNU tar.
> >Regardless of what you use for backup, be it tar or programs designed
> >from scratch for backup like 'dump', for software distribution I want
> >portability over conformance to standards. If the distribution doesn't
> >work it won't be used, regardless of pedantic conformance to standards.
>
> Sou you should decide to avoid GNU tar...
No, because I can read GNU tar output on more systems with less
trouble than any other format I use for giving away my software. This is
the "lowest common denominator" principle. For the same reason, when I
write a shell script I make it work with the default /bin/sh in Xenix,
SVR[34], BSD, Solaris, and Linux. I'm trying to make it easy for the
user.
I would rather have people think I'm clever for making it portable
and easly to use than for using the obscure and often non-portable
features of all the tools I personally employ.
--
-bill davidsen ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
last possible moment - but no longer" -me
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