tar frustration (was Re: relative pathname question!)

[The Beach Bum]

In article <2862 at ttrdc.UUCP> levy at ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) writes:
>In article <1988Aug13.190030.1495 at gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>, woods at gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Greg Woods) writes:
># Anyone done any work on the PD-tar lately?  It needs multi-volume
># handling, should have the ability to format floppies, and change devices
>            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
># inter-volume (ala cpio), before I'll bother using it.
>
>Are you kidding?  Is this not inherently nonportable?

no, this can be handled (portably, no less) by having an option for a
command to execute prior to starting each volume.  afio has this ability
and i have used it to unload tapes without having to go over to the
tape drive.  it would be trivial to add code to the pd tar to see what
the first character of the line typed in response to the 'next volume'
prompt.  if the first character is '!', then execute the rest of the
line as a command.  format comes to mind as a useful one ...
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