Very Computer

Im looking for an archiving program, to use with a tape drive, that
stores its file list at the beggining of the archive and when requested
to extract a file will seek to the appropriate position in the archive.

When I use tar to do a file list (tar -tf) it has to slowly scan through
the entire archive file.  And if I also want to extract a file near the
end of the archive tar has to scan through the entire archive.

Also I'd like it for multiple platforms.  So I can share files on the
tape between different OSs

Or should I write my own?

--
-- mark heath                   | Netspace Online Systems

:
: Im looking for an archiving program, to use with a tape drive, that
: stores its file list at the beggining of the archive and when requested
: to extract a file will seek to the appropriate position in the archive.
:
: When I use tar to do a file list (tar -tf) it has to slowly scan through
: the entire archive file.  And if I also want to extract a file near the
: end of the archive tar has to scan through the entire archive.
Make a list with gnu-tar with the -R option. and append it to
the archive as a second file. Then when you want to restore a file
first skip the first file, get the list from the backup, rewind
and recalculate the recordnumbers (-R) to your tape blocksize
and skip somany records minus one to make sure, and start
restoring! This works very well, the only disadvantage is that
when tar has restored everything you wanted it keeps reading
the archive to see if there are more files to restore, so it
reads until the end of the archive unless you stop it by hand!
I use something similar except that I keep the lists compressed
on harddisk, well the last 20 lists or so!
:
: Also I'd like it for multiple platforms.  So I can share files on the
: tape between different OSs
That sounds like tar!! You can get a tar for DOS I'm sure.
And I also heard of a backup utility for Netware that can process tar
and also for NT. There should be a tar for VMS and every unix has
one and if it doesnot have the right options compile gnu-tar under
unix.

:
: Or should I write my own?
:
:
: --
: -- mark heath                         | Netspace Online Systems


--
Roland van Hout, software engineer at Foxim Software, Rotterdam,

Quote:>That sounds like tar!! You can get a tar for DOS I'm sure.

--

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Quote:>That sounds like tar!! You can get a tar for DOS I'm sure.

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Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Anything better than tar?
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:07:40 GMT
Organization: Tomblin Computer Consulting, Rochester, New York and Ottawa,
Ontario
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