GNU-tar vs dump(1)

[Fred Fish]

In article <10797 at rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> jfh at rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) writes:
>This problem and others can be solved by telling GNU-tar about the file
>system.  There is no reason a system utility shouldn't be aware of the
>system layout.

I believe there is, portability.

>How many CPU years are going to be wasted LZW'ing all those sparce blocks
>when a little file system knowelege would have saved us all that grief?
>Write the code once and be done with it.

And then rewrite it every time the filesystem changes.  I would rather
take the CPU hit than support 10 or 15 different filesystem layouts, some
of them completely unrelated to UNIX.

-Fred
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