12 Feb
2007
12 Feb
'07
4:34 a.m.
(For example,
my tar supports files larger than 8GB, which I was
somewhat surprised to find GNU tar didn't [...])
Recent versions at least do;
I wrote some which were around 14GB a
few weeks ago and they read back and verified against original data
OK (no errors, missing files etc.) It's one of the things I dislike about tar in
general though; I'm
never sure when I'm going to hit either file size or file path length
limits.
That's why my tar uses private header formats to transparently handle
path length limits (on which it imposes no restrictions except
available memory, I think) and file size limits (on which it does
impose a 2^88-byte limit; I could lift even that limit with a little
work if I were convinced it were worth it, though I'd be unable to test
it as I have no OSes which support file sizes over 2^64). I think GNU
tar does something similar for pathname length limits.
Other than that though it's generally better than
the alternatives in
that the format's documented well
It is? Where? I've been looking for a long time for documentation on
tar format, and so far all the pointers I've found have ended up at
pay-for-play "standards". I'd love to get hold of a real spec for the
tar header block format.
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