[comp.sys.mac] Problem with tar; files that exist but can't be read

name@PORTIA.STANFORD.EDU (tony cooper) (01/17/89)

I copied a tar file from UNIX and un tarred it using tar for the Macintosh.
It worked fine - the untarring operation created a new folder and put in all
the files as it should have. The files were all the correct size too. But
they are unreadable. I set them to type TEXT and owner TEXT as a tar option
but no word processor can read them. Neither can Fedit nor Symantic Tools.
Mighty peculiar. The even peculiarer thing is that I repeated this operation
several times (changing various linefeed options) and just once one of the
files extracted was readable (it was of type TEXT/TEXT). This is strange
because all the UNIX files were ascii files so either all or none should be
readable.

It beats me why Fedit doesn't read them. Any ideas?

Tony Cooper

cruff@ncar.ucar.edu (Craig Ruff) (01/17/89)

In article <8901170655.AA26245@Portia.stanford.edu> name@PORTIA.STANFORD.EDU (tony cooper) writes:
>I copied a tar file from UNIX and un tarred it using tar for the Macintosh.
>It worked fine - the untarring operation created a new folder and put in all
>the files as it should have. The files were all the correct size too. But
>they are unreadable. I set them to type TEXT and owner TEXT as a tar option
>but no word processor can read them.

Ah, sorry about that.  This is due to a bug in the program that fails to
set the version number properly to zero.  If Apple isn't going to use that
stupid version number, why don't they either get rid of it or do the right
thing (i.e. force it to zero) on HFS calls?

Anyway, you can get the fixed version of tar via anonymous FTP from
handies.ucar.edu (128.117.64.4) in the file 'pub/mactar.hqx'.  If you
saved the other enhanced version that Sak Wathanasin sent recently,
it also has this bug fixed (along with better directory selection).
This enhanced version is also available in the file 'pub/mactar.1.2.hqx'.
-- 
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