chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (04/20/87)
In article <1696@husc6.UUCP> dudek@endor.harvard.edu (Glen Dudek) writes: >... but UNIX semantics for raw tape devices require this behaviour I do not think so: >(at least, all such raw tape drivers I've ever seen behave this way). All save one. The TU78 driver in 4.[23]BSD gives ENOMEM errors when reading with too small a block size. >I found this problem when a remote software installation broke because the >installation assumed 'dd if=/dev/rmt4 of=/dev/null' would successfully >skip a tape file independent of blocksize. I believe the `proper' way to skip a file is to use the magtape ioctls: `mt -f /dev/rmt4 fsf'. Obviously this will not work on systems without such ioctls. (So it goes.) -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7690) UUCP: seismo!mimsy!chris ARPA/CSNet: chris@mimsy.umd.edu