From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Oct 4 10:13:58 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D92DB37B401 for ; Fri, 4 Oct 2002 10:13:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from androcles.com (androcles.com [204.57.240.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A0C1143E42 for ; Fri, 4 Oct 2002 10:13:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from alex@androcles.com) Received: (from alex@localhost) by androcles.com (8.11.6/8.11.3) id g94HDpm63371 for freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG; Fri, 4 Oct 2002 10:13:51 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from alex) Message-Id: <200210041713.g94HDpm63371@androcles.com> X-Mailer: XFMail 1.4.0 on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2002 10:13:51 -0700 (PDT) From: "Duane H. Hesser" To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Tartools and "art" (and FreeBSD) Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In the past few months, there have been a number of threads in the FreeBSD lists regarding 'tar'. I have a 'tartools' distribution which may address some of the concerns expressed, but I have not responded to those threads for a couple of reasons. 1) I don't want to start any 'tar wars' (my light wand was recalled due to a manufacturing defect). 2) Tartools is not a 'plug-compatible' replacement for GNU tar, including the FreeBSD version. With a little work, item 2 might be overcome. Tartools was originally written sometime during the Cenozoic; it has been modified occasionally over the past few years, and a significant effort went into some modernizations earlier this year, resulting in a distribution which is available at http://androcles.com/dist/tartools/ The distribution is BSD licenced. I won't extend this message unnecessarily by describing the tools here; the DESCRIPTION file at the above address should be consulted if you are interested. The description includes some information about compatibility with other tars; a somewhat more detailed discussion of compatibility is included in http://androcles.com/dist/tartools/doc/usingtt/node27.html I will go this far; the tartools distribution includes the following programs: creatar, listar, extractar, cmptar, mvtar, rmtar, appentar, updatar, and art, created by conditional compilation. The most interesting (and to some, most disturbing) feature of these programs is that they are *interactive*; they also produce "labeled" archives. In order to satisfy FreeBSDs needs (as I understand them from earlier threads), it would be necessarily to add a conditionally compiled 'tar' program, with a more familiar option-gathering module (tartools use 'getopt') and with interactive operation disabled by default. The latter is easy to do, while the former might require some negotiation (but otherwise easy to do). On the positive side, the tools support FreeBSDs "large" device nodes, and recent modifications are intended to support 64 bit file offsets (although this is largely untested). The latest version also opens gzipped, bzipped, or compressed archives automatically, based upon filename extension. It is important to note that these tools have never been subject to the depredations of the average user, only me (and some would insist that I am *below* average...don't believe them, please). Considerable "peer review" would be called for. If there is interest in this, I am willing (and able...pay work is hard to find these days) to invest the time and effort necessary to meet FreeBSD user's needs in this area. One last warning, to those who may elect to examine the code. Use 4-space tabs. -------------- The Ancient Programmer dhh@androcles.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message