extracting files from a tar file

[Bob Fyfe]

I have a faculty member who has brought a tape with him from a different site.
It is a tar tape and the files were stored using absolute pathnames. The 
difficulty is that we don't have the same file structure names and so when
I would try to restore the files, it fills up the root file structure 
quickly (we don't keep a whole lot of space available in that partition).

I was wondering if there are any PD programs that exist or whether someone
has written a script to get around this problem. I could write a script
to extract a file at a time and then move it but its a hassle trying to 
maintain the directory structure that the faculty member has and preserve
modification dates. I've also considered writing a C program using the 
chroot function and doing a system call to tar but that seems messy too.

Is there anything out there available or am I missing something in my own 
backyard?

Any help would be appreciated. You can direct email any solutions to me.


Bob Fyfe


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* Bob Fyfe / EMT-A/ Ham Radio KA8YWQ | INTERNET: fyfe at andy.bgsu.edu       *
* University Computer Services       | BITNET:   fyfe at bgsuopie            *
* Bowling Green State University (OH)| UUCP:     ...!osu-cis!bgsuvax!fyfe *
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-- 
***************************************************************************
* Bob Fyfe / EMT-A/ Ham Radio KA8YWQ | INTERNET: fyfe at andy.bgsu.edu       *
* University Computer Services       | BITNET:   fyfe at bgsuopie            *
* Bowling Green State University (OH)| UUCP:     ...!osu-cis!bgsuvax!fyfe *
***************************************************************************