> I'm not sure I understand fully. Tar by itself, with no added command
> line parameter will not do absolute-path, so if you <tar xvf
> filename.tar> it will untar the archive in the pwd. It should only be
> when you do a <tar xvf --absolute-path filename.tar> that it will
> cause it to untar in the incorporated paths. Or am I confused?
> chris
> On Sat, 28 Aug 1999 10:13:35 +0200, "Markus Meng"
> >> Hey and hello,
> >> I do have a tar archive on a tape. I would like to extract some files
> >> onto my solaris machine. However all the files on the archive are
> >> in absolute path notation...Is there a switch to tell the tar cmd
> >> not to try to restore with the absolute path notation, since I don't
> >> want those pathes on my solaris box ??
> >> thank's
> >> marcus
> >> --
> --
> Chris Campbell
> http://members.xoom.com/tech33/
> Tech33 on the IRC
If you think about it a moment, you will realize that the filename
can't just be a name of a file. After all, you could have the
same filename in different directories. So if you are extracting
a specific file, you have to give its complete path specification
as listed in the tar archive. If it is a relative path, tar
will extract just that path relative to the current directory.
But if it is an absolute path, it will try to do it from /.
Having said that, I must admit I haven't tried that with
an absolute path since the first time many years ago when
I first ran into trouble for so doing. Old Unix hands NEVER
use absolute paths in tars unless they have a compelling
reason.
--
Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208
by