From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Mar 16 11:53:15 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from danube.ccity.com (danube.circuitcity.com [12.26.69.4]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D62B237C251 for ; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 11:53:07 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from David_Gadoury@ccnotes.ccity.com) Received: by danube.ccity.com(Lotus SMTP MTA v4.6.5 (863.2 5-20-1999)) id 852568A4.006C7167 ; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 14:44:29 -0500 X-Lotus-FromDomain: CARMAX@CIRCUIT CITY@CCEXTERNAL From: David_Gadoury@ccnotes.ccity.com To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Message-ID: <852568A4.006C7023.00@danube.ccity.com> Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 14:52:43 -0500 Subject: tar question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG what exactly does the following command do. (how does it work) tar cf - . | (cd /usr/var; tar xf - ) i understand what the following parts do tar cf cd /usr/var tar xf i understand to a degree that | runs the first part through the second. i asked the local linux guy here and he wasn't exactly sure how it worked. he said something about the - being standard input or output but he couldn't remember which. i hate typing in commands w/o knowing what they do. thanks for answering such a simplistic question To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message