mt asf

[Greg Limes]

Steve Elias (eli at chipcom.chipcom.com) writes:
> sunos 4.0.3 documentation refers to the 'asf' option of the mt command.
> this is an undocumented option, i think.
> it seems to act like "mt fsf"...

I am probably the *second* best person to answer this one. I have up on my
wall the revised "MT(1)" manual page, given to me by the engineer that
rammed the asf capability through the various levels of kernel and utility
support requirements.

Just as "FSF" is "Forward Space File" and "BSF" is "Backward Space File",
this now gives you "ASF", or "Absolute Space File". Very Very Very useful
for getting from somewhere random on the tape to file number four, without
rewinding first (for most tapes).

I understand that the code is robust in the face of failures, falling back
to a "rewind and start spacing forward" strategy when all else fails, but
I have not actually observed this behavior in action.

Greg Limes	limes at sun.com	...!sun!limes	73327,2473	[chose one]