Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site astrovax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!astrovax!wls From: wls@astrovax.UUCP (William L. Sebok) Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: tar .vs. cpio - (nf) Message-ID: <416@astrovax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 13-Aug-84 20:11:05 EDT Article-I.D.: astrovax.416 Posted: Mon Aug 13 20:11:05 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Aug-84 02:37:35 EDT References: <226@haddock.UUCP> <2541@mit-eddie.UUCP> Organization: Princeton Univ. Astrophysics Lines: 25 >In article <226@haddock.UUCP> johnl@haddock.UUCP writes: >> - reading file names from stdin is a feature, not a bug. You can use >> find to enumerate just the files you want rather than having to dump >> everything in a directory tree, e.g. >> >> $ find somedir -mtime -14 -print | cpio -oB >/dev/rmt0 >> >> (dump only files modified within the last two weeks.) Doing this >> with tar is pretty hard. > >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. On the Vax under 4.2 BSD as distributed this is 10240 characters. This can be easily exceeded in a medium large file system. Heck, it is sometimes exceeded in a run-away uucp spool directory. -- Bill Sebok Princeton University, Astrophysics {allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,noao,princeton,vax135}!astrovax!wls