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From: adm@cbneb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: tar .vs. cpio - (nf)
Message-ID: <1227@cbneb.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Aug-84 10:23:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbneb.1227
Posted: Tue Aug 14 10:23:19 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Aug-84 02:04:17 EDT
Sender: adm@cbneb.UUCP
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, OHIO
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#R:ucbopal:-19800:cbnap:27300004:000:579
cbnap!whp    Aug 14 09:36:00 1984

>>It isn't really very hard:
>>	tar  `find ...`
>>
>>Accepting file names on the command line is the Unix convention.
>>    Barry Margolin
>
>No.  It may be the Unix convention but it is not useful for dumping large
>numbers of files (like when doing a backup).  There is a limit on how large
>an argument list can be passed to a program.

I don't know about BSD UNIX, but in sys V you can always use:
	find  |xargs tar 

(xargs is a program that reads stdin, constructs and executes a proper
command line, and repeats until eof is found on stdin)