Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 v7 ucbopal-1.9 BSD 4.2; site ucbopal.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!zehntel!dual!amd!decwrl!decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!ucbopal!tut From: tut@ucbopal.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: tar .vs. cpio Message-ID: <198@ucbopal.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Date: Tue, 7-Aug-84 03:52:38 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbopal.198 Posted: Tue Aug 7 03:52:38 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Aug-84 03:38:06 EDT Organization: Univ. of Calif., Berkeley CA USA Lines: 11 Could someone justify the existence of cpio? What's wrong with tar? As the saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." The only portability problems I've ever encountered with tar were, I believe, caused by 1) a strange Plexus tape drive, and 2) the unavailability of tar on bare System V. Tar descends directory hierarchies, while cpio requires the aid of find. Tar always uses character at a time I/O, while cpio must be passed the -c flag to do this. So what have I overlooked? Bill Tuthill ucbvax!opal.tut