On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Michael ODonnell <michael.odonn...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > My Debian system's tar identifies itself as "tar (GNU tar) 1.22" and > the output generated with --help includes the following excerpt where > that --no-overwrite-dir option sounds like what you wanted: > > Overwrite control: > > -k, --keep-old-files don't replace existing files when extracting > --keep-newer-files don't replace existing files that are newer than > their archive copies > --no-overwrite-dir preserve metadata of existing directories > --overwrite overwrite existing files when extracting > --overwrite-dir overwrite metadata of existing directories when > extracting (default) > --recursive-unlink empty hierarchies prior to extracting directory > --remove-files remove files after adding them to the archive > -U, --unlink-first remove each file prior to extracting over it > -W, --verify attempt to verify the archive after writing it >
Thanks. There is a lot more option information in the --help output than in the man page. I wanted to overwrite all directories except "sites" which is why I was hoping --exclude=sites would work. I'll have to test --keep-newer-files to see if that works. http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html#SEC72 p.s. I read the tar man page (more than once), and those options aren't listed. There is this BUG statement at the bottom: BUGS The GNU folks, in general, abhor man pages, and create info documents instead. Unfortunately, the info document describing tar is licensed under the GFDL with invariant cover texts, which violates the Debian Free Software Guidelines. As a result, the info documentation for tar is not included in the Debian package. If you want to read the complete documentation for GNU tar, please refer to the online version at <http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/index.html> This man page was created for the Debian distribution. It does not describe all of the functionality of tar, and it is often out of date. Patches to improve the coverage and/or accuracy of this man page are appreciated, and should be filed as wishlist severity bugs against the Debian tar package, not submitted to the GNU tar maintainers. -- Greg Rundlett Web Developer - Initiative in Innovative Computing http://iic.harvard.edu camb 617-384-5872 nbpt 978-225-8302 m. 978-764-4424 -skype/aim/irc/twitter freephile http://profiles.aim.com/freephile _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/