andy@istbt.UUCP (Andy Greener) (03/19/85)
Jack Jansen, ({decvax|philabs|seismo}!mcvax!jack) writes: > > Well, for the benefit of all V7 users that are still out there: > There is a bug like this in Version 7 tar. > When it has to make a new directory, it does something like > > if( fork() == 0) { > exec("/bin/mkdir",....) > exit(); > } > while( wait(NULL) > 0 ); <--- GRRRRR > > Now, guess what happens when you start up tar in the receiving > end of a pipe....... > > (For those who don't like guessing: The shell sets up pipes so > that the front end is a child of the back end. This means that, > besides the mkdir, tar will have another child, being the first > end of the pipe. This means that the second wait will take a > *very* long time........) V7? This bug is still there in Sys V.2!!! (I made reference to it in my original article about the pg shell-out problem - we fixed tar to work correctly here). There must be others lurking out there somewhere. Andy Greener Imperial Software Technology London {mcvax,qtlon,inset,root44}!ist!andy