Piping TAR

[Mark Clements]

In article <1991May7.001920.21111 at mrspoc.Transact.COM> 
        itkin at mrspoc.Transact.COM (Steven M. List) writes:

>>rembis at nic.cerf.net (Michael Rembis) writes:
>>
>>Hi. I need some help on a PC based XENIX system running version 2.3.
>>I am trying to relocate a tar file that is on the hard disk out to
>>a set of floppies.  I have tried things like   tar xf FILE | (tar cv2 -)
>>and other combinations of that command with no luck. Does anyone know
>>the right sequence to initiate this ?

>  Unfortunately, you can't do it without first extracting the files from
>  the archive and then creating the floppy archive.  TAR writes to separate
>  files when it extracts.  There's no way to tell it to just copy the files
>  with all their headers to floppies.  :^(
>
>  So, unless someone corrects me, I'm afraid that Michael is stuck with
>  creating a temporary area, extracting the files from the tar file, and
>  then creating the floppies and subsequently removing the files from the
>  hard disk.

If the tar file in question is small enough to fit on one disk, you
can transfer it this way:
 
                    dd if=foo.tar of=/dev/fd096ds15

     ( substituting the correct tar file and floppy device, of course :)

Be sure to use the block device for the floppy, not the character
device.

If, however, the tar file is too large to fit on one disk, this won't
work ( dd doesn't "know" that you are writing to a disk, and so will
just barf when you run out of space on the floppy ).

Hope this helps.

--
Mark Clements                                            Email:  uunet!rac!mpc
RAC Information Systems, Inc                                     mpc at rac.com  
Great Neck, NY