Consistency checking scripts...

[Robert Claeson]

In a recent article aglew at crhc.uiuc.edu (Andy Glew) writes:

>    Ensure that none of the relative pathnames below your working
>directories ($HOME, etc.) exceed, say, 95 characters in length -
>because tar has a limit at 100 characters, and cpio has a limit at 128
>characters (on my SUN, at least).

This leads me to express this major question that has sprung to my mind
several times during the last few years:

*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?

-- 
Robert Claeson                  |Reasonable mailers: rclaeson at erbe.se
ERBE DATA AB                    |      Dumb mailers: rclaeson%erbe.se at sunet.se
                                |  Perverse mailers: rclaeson%erbe.se at encore.com
These opinions reflect my personal views and not those of my employer.