[comp.unix.wizards] Front end for DUMP needed

fiorese@bashful.steinmetz (peter d fiorese) (10/28/88)

  I am looking for some help in writing a front end program for dump.
I want to write multiple dump files to a single tape.  In order to do
this, I must trap dumps messages so that the operators do no change
the tape after every write, but after every tenth write.
  I need to be able to interpret the dump messages, so that the true
error messages go to the screen and to a file (all output from dump is
written to stderr).  I also need to keep track of the number of writes
tape, and compensate when a write fails.
  If you have any information on how my routine can 'intelligently run'
dump, I would appreciate some insight.  If you have information because 
you know of, or have a similar application running, I would appreciate 
that as well.
  Thank you in advance for your help.

  Pete Fiorese

fiorese@bashful.steinmetz.ge.com	fiorese@ge-crd.ARPA

chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (10/28/88)

Capsule summary: someone wants a `friendly' front-end for dump that
handles multiple dumps on a single tape.

The most insidious problem is that dump assumes that it can talk to
a human operator by reading `/dev/tty'.  Solve that, and you should
be able to run dumps from another program.  At a minimum, this requires
writing a program that uses ptys (so that dump can have a `control
terminal' that is in fact a program).

This is a good argument for rewriting dump.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris