[comp.unix.questions] tar crash when filenames greaterthan 14 characters?

young@hamavnet.com (07/04/90)

My first time on so be easy!

I am running Unix System V and I have a tape that was made via tar on a DEC
Ultrix system.  When I tar in the files the ones with more than fourteen
characters cause the utility to bomb with an error.   Should not I just get
truncated files.  This is System V (3.2).

Thanks.


Brian A. Young       | young@hamavnet.com               | Who gives a rip!
Engineering Services | mcdapps!mcdhwd!briany            | 
Avnet Computer       | fax: 213 280 3944                |

cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) (07/04/90)

In article <1684.2690c9cf@hamavnet.com> young@hamavnet.com writes:
>I am running Unix System V and I have a tape that was made via tar on a DEC
>Ultrix system.  When I tar in the files the ones with more than fourteen
>characters cause the utility to bomb with an error.   Should not I just get
>truncated files.  This is System V (3.2).

The standard system V 3.2 will just truncate the files.  However, if you 
are running on an OS that has added some POSIX compatibilities (like SCO
UNIX), then the file will not be created and an error is returned.

If you are running SCO UNIX, a patch was posted to comp.unix.i386 to turn
off this capability back in April.  If you don't have it, email me and I
will send it to you.

-- 
Conor P. Cahill            (703)430-9247        Virtual Technologies, Inc.,
uunet!virtech!cpcahil                           46030 Manekin Plaza, Suite 160
                                                Sterling, VA 22170 

gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (07/05/90)

In article <1684.2690c9cf@hamavnet.com> young@hamavnet.com writes:
>When I tar in the files the ones with more than fourteen characters
>cause the utility to bomb with an error.   Should not I just get
>truncated files.

Of course not -- "tar" asks the kernel to create the file with the
name specified, and the kernel correctly reports that it cannot.
The danger of automatically truncating the name is that files
having the same truncated name may get overwritten.