Jeff Vance writes:
> tar does not do compression so we can use the file suffix to know what type
> of compression, if any, was done.  .Z, .gz, etc.  compress is a standard unix
> compression utility, producing the .Z suffix, and is on all MPE systems
> starting with 5.0

Tar on 5.5 *will* do .Z compress(1) compatible compression if you specify the
"z" option.

> How does this sound.?  IMO, we can start using tar now as long as we
> have a mover flavor of the same archive for our users still on 5.0
> (5.0 tar does not preserve MPE file attributes)

This still requires mover archives for the 5.0 sites.  You still have the
"which mover do I need?" problem.

If a patch was done for 5.0 tar to support attributes, everybody could use tar,
including the 5.0 sites.
--
Mark Bixby                      E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Coast Community College Dist.   Web: http://www.cccd.edu/~markb/
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"You can tune a file system, but you can't tune a fish." - tunefs(1M)