Hi The /bin/compress symlink (pointing to gzip) was added to allow newer tar's auto-detection of compressed archives to work on `.Z' archives.
This is technically incorrect IMHO. Now, if you type in: compress filename you end up with a filename with a `.gz' extension instead of the expected `.Z' extension. IMHO the correct solution for getting tar's auto-detection to work with `.Z' archives is to install a proper `compress' program. Even versions of tar prior to 1.15 (pre auto-detection) support `.Z' archives by relying on the presence of a `compress' program which is activated by the `Z' switch eg: tar -Zxf filename.tar.Z Also consider that gzip's source code supports calling the binary by the name `uncompress' thus justifying the /bin/uncompress symlink, but there is no such support for `compress'. It's only a minor point and `.Z' archives are becoming scarce, so I don't care enough to file it in BZ but thought it worth bringing to your attention anyway. Regards Greg -- http://www.diy-linux.org/ -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ Unsubscribe: See the above information page
