From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 1 10:19:56 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A6ABF16A4B3 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 2003 10:19:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from floyd.gnulife.org (floyd.gnulife.org [199.86.41.27]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D0A1243FDD for ; Wed, 1 Oct 2003 10:19:55 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jamie@gnulife.org) Received: by floyd.gnulife.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 1C67D4344D; Wed, 1 Oct 2003 12:29:18 -0500 (CDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by floyd.gnulife.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0CC7743448 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 2003 12:29:17 -0500 (CDT) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 12:29:17 -0500 (CDT) From: Jamie To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20031001122603.B71418-100000@floyd.gnulife.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: tar vs cp X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 17:19:56 -0000 X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 17:19:56 -0000 I've been told in the past that if you have a series of directories with subdirectories that you need to copy to another location on a disk, it is better to tar the directory, move the tarred file to the destination, and then untar it, rather than using cp to copy the directory and all of its contents. I don't know what the actual rationale is for this. Can anyone explain why it is oftentimes better to tar something rather than using cp when copying directories and their contents? Thanks, - Jamie "A friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself."