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Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 07:18:18 -0500
From: "Daniel M. Eischen" <deischen@iworks.InterWorks.org>
To: questions@FreeBSD.ORG, reyes01@ibm.net
Subject: Re: How to get tar to read input files from file?
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> I have a book which has a line like
> tar -cvf /dev/fd0 'cat backup.list'>backup.log
>
> It is supposed to read the file names from a file called backup.list.
> When I try it it dowsn't work. I tried also using <backup.list and
> that didn't work either.
>
> Any suggestions on how to pipe a file to tar to read input files?

You've got the quotes going in the wrong direction (' != `).
The backwards quote (what's the name of this guy?) causes
execution of whatever it surrounds.  Use this:

  tar -cvf /dev/fd0 `cat backup.list` > backup.log

Dan Eischen
deischen@iworks.InterWorks.org