Consistency checking scripts...

[Dik T. Winter]

In article <1990Oct22.185817.1739 at erbe.se> prc at erbe.se (Robert Claeson) writes:
 > *WHY* hasn't anyone designed a portable archive and backup format
 > that can handle at least as long pathnames as a UNIX system allows,
 > ie 1024 characters?
 > 
That would still not be enough.  (Although there is a limit of 1024 characters
on path names you can use, the length of the actual path to get at the file/
directory can be longer.  But you can not get at it in a single command/
system call.)
Another approach would be to include information about directories (ala
BSD tar) and use this information in the construction of the path name for
the file.  You need also information about leaving directories etc.  This is
all done in archival systems for the Macintosh that allow archiving of
folders aka directories.  The drawback is that a bad block might distort the
directory information, but this is minor.  Also multi volume backups can get
hairy, but with increasing media sizes...

Just some thoughts.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland
dik at cwi.nl