Do YOU know... how to STOP posting in HTML, dammit?

[Douglas G. Henke]

Lyssky <c0...@student.dtu.dk> writes:

> <TT><B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+1>Hi Unix-Wizards,</FONT></FONT></B></TT>
> <BR><TT>&nbsp;</TT>
> <BR><TT>Do any of you know how to use TAR to</TT>
> <BR><TT>compress files to diskettes on a unix?</TT><TT></TT>

Now, can you see how FSCKING ANNOYING that is to those of using a
newsreader to read and post news, as opposed to a graphical browser or
(other) video game for the clueless?

Do you know what the difference is between layout and markup? Do you
know that abusing a markup language to specify what font or color is
used to render something is a grave conceptual error?

Do you know why it's foolish to use page layout when you don't know
anything at all about the output device, including whether or not
it resembles a page or has anything like physical layout?

Can you explain the relationship between contrast and luminance? If
not, then what makes you think you have any business setting the
default color of ANYTHING?

Do you have any excuse at all for not using 7-bit flat ASCII?

That said, I'll answer your question.

Originally, tar was an archiver (tar == Tape ARchive, see?). Most tar
commands out there stick with that design. So, you use tar to archvie
(i.e. to flatten bunch of files to a bit stream), and then use some
other compression program to compress, and then dump to your output
device. Ferinstance:

tar cvf - somedir otherdir somefile | compress >/dev/fd0

Modern versions of GNU tar (I can't be arsed to look up what version
first had this feature) can invoke gzip to do the compression and
decompression when given the '-z' option, thus:

tar cvzf /dev/fd0 somedir otherdir somefile

When I'm archiving, I tend to prefer cpio or afio to tar (depending on
the application and whether I care about other people being able to
conveniently extract the archive).

For compression, bzip2 seems quite stable and offers substantially
better compression than gzip. (BSD-style compress is hideously
inefficient, and arguably patent-infested. Avoid unless you know you
need to exchange data with some backward system which has no other
compression.)

Note that dumping output directly to /dev/fd0 (or whatever your floppy
is) produces a raw gzipped tar (or whatever) format floppy.

The advantage of this is that you don't have to format or mount the
floppy first, or umount it after. The disadvantage, if you consider
it a disadvantage, is that you'll have a fun time trying to read it
on a 'doze or mess-DOS box.

If you need to do that, mount a msdos-fs floppy and copy a file to
it, or use mtools (or analogous tools, like SCO's "doscp") to write
it there.

> <P><TT>Mail me and tell me!</TT><TT></TT>

Nope, gotta read the 'froup if you want an answer. Not as convenient
for you in the short run, but you'll pick up other clues if you do it
which makes everybody's life (including your own) better in the long
run.

P.S. You could probably have gotten an answer from somebody who's not
quite as rude and sarcastic in comp.unix.question or comp.unix.shell.
This is the "ask a wizard-level question" group, not the "have a
wizard answer my random question" group. Remember, we're subtle and
quick to anger...

--
Headers munged to avoid email spam. Mail to henke at phoenix dot net.