SUMMARY: tar - extract filenames longer than 100 chars

From: Andrew Weston (andreww@adacel.com.au)
Date: Wed May 24 1995 - 05:40:15 CDT


----------- From Andrew Weston, Adacel Pty Ltd -----------
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Hi all,

Apologies for the delays in sending this summary.

PORTIONS OF ORIGINAL QUERY:
+-------------------------
| tar mMn page extract reads:
| MAN> The current limit on file name length is 100 characters.
|
| you guessed it, starting from the root directory many files full path
| exceeded 100 characters. When we restored the files only those with
| a filename less than 101 chars were restored.
|
| A tar -tvf shows that other files (with longer pathnames) were written
| to tape.
|
| The question: Is there any way to extract the files with names greater
| than 100 characters from the tape?
+-------------------------

TO QUALIFY:
I must apologise for the lack of detail regarding this query. To
qualify: Machine is a SunSparc 10, running Solaris 2.3 (no patches).
I had used an input list file with the tar, and yes they were relative
not absolute filenames.

CURIOSITY:
A few were suprised (as I was) that the files were written to tape in
the first place. It seems that Murphey did not have full reign.

SUMMARY OF SUGGESTIONS:
The majority of replies suggested using GNU tar. I managed to extract
a copy for the net, however as (Brent Chivers et al) noted, it looks as
though the archive needs to have been made with gnu tar. My extraction
attempt truncated the names over 100 chars (a little more than the
solaris tar but not quite there).

Patches were suggested, however they were for SunOS 4.1.x versions.
Apologies for not disclosing the OS version.

BSD distribution of tar was also suggested; however I didn't try this
option.

Several people suggested that tar was a bad choice: I agree, however it
was only a stopgap whilst I was investigation problems with our find/
cpio backup scripts. In my haste however I neglected to note the
comment at the end of the tar fiel.

Other backup alternatives were given:
- gnu tar
- cpio (we are currently using).
- dump/restore (perhaps worth investigation)
- the 'bar' tool (I have heard this is on SunOS, but can find no man
                  page under Solaris 2.3).
- BUDTOOL etc (commercial product)

OUR OBSERVATIONS:
Someone here reported that if we set a base directory, one of the SunOS
4.1.x machines could extract the files. I also observed that the tar
in OSF1 on our digital comuters could extract these files. I ended up
rsh dd (on the sun) | tar (on digital) which seems to have been fully
successful.

CREDITS:
The response to my query was quick and helpful. My thanks go to the
following people for their help/suggestions:

Martin Achilli <martin@gea.hsr.it>
Fausto Almeida <fausto@poirot.ist.utl.pt> (who posted a summary)
Brent Chivers <bchivers@karoshi.mitre.org>
John DiMarco <jdd@db.toronto.edu>
Chris Drake <Chris.Drake@Corp.Sun.COM>
Dave Fetrow <fetrow@biostat.washington.edu>
Kathryn Fielding <kathrynf@everest.rdi.com>
Nico Garcia <raoul@MIT.EDU>
Steve Harris <etnibsd!vsh@uunet.uu.net>
Perry Hutchison <perryh@pluto.rain.com>
Roland Kaltefleiter <kaltef@solid.theo-physik.uni-kiel.d400.de>
Joe Konczal <konczal@csmes.ncsl.nist.gov>
Ian MacPhedran <macphed@dvinci.usask.ca>
Jeff Marble <jmarble@kenai.cambric.com>
Frederic Piard <frederic.piard@erli.gsi.fr>
Paul Roland <roland@netcom.com>
John Rosenberg <jcr@bgumby.bwh.harvard.edu>
Glenn Satchell <Glenn.Satchell@uniq.com.au>
Kevin Sheehan <Kevin.Sheehan@uniq.com.au>
Stefan Jon Silverman <sjs@sunthing.sjsinc.com>
John Stanley <stanley@oce.orst.edu>
Martin Walter <mawa@ruf.uni-freiburg.de>
Sean Ward <seanw@amgen.com>
Kevin West <kevin@ma.pdc.com> (commercial)
Sanford Whitehouse <sanford@lsil.com>

-- 
Thankyou,

Andrew Weston

.... . ._.. ._.. ___ .._. . ._.. ._.. ___ .__ _._. ___ _.. . ._. ... Any comments I may make are not necessarily those of my employer. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ ADACEL PTY. LTD. _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ 250 Bay St, _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/ _/ Brighton VIC 3182 _/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Ph: +61 3 596-2991 _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Fax: +61 3 596-2960 _/ _/ _/ _/ AUSTRALIAN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE Andrew Weston e-mail: andreww@adacel.com.au -----------------------------------------------------------------------



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