acmfiu@serss0.fiu.edu (ACMFIU) (01/12/91)
Where can I find detailed information about the format of tar archives? [[Ed's Note: A good place to start might be the GNU Tar source code/README files. Gnu tar is a public domain implementation of tar based on John Gilmore's original public domain tar. It is available via anonymous ftp from prep.ai.mit.edu (18.71.0.38) as public/gnu/tar-1.09.tar.Z. -bdg]]
lwv27@CAS.BITNET (01/19/91)
As opposed to the moderator, my first response would be - did you try the manual pages? In specific, try: man -k tar which tells man to do a keyword search for man page entries dealing with the string of characters 'tar'. I found a tar man page in section 5 which should get one started. The problem with using the GNU source and man pages is that there is no guarantee that what it describes is completely compatible with what is being used by /bin/tar - it might be a superset of traditional tar. Larry W. Virden UUCP: osu-cis!chemabs!lwv27 Same Mbox: BITNET: lwv27@cas INET: lwv27%cas.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.Edu Personal: 674 Falls Place, Reynoldsburg,OH 43068-1614 America Online: lvirden
laird@chinet.chi.il.us (Laird J. Heal) (01/21/91)
>Where can I find detailed information about the format of tar archives? [Oh, Ma, you won't mind if I talk about your 'old man' a little, will ya?] >From an old man page on tar(1): "The _tar_ header format is as follows: #define TBLOCK 512 #define NBLOCK 40 #define NAMSIZ 100 union hblock { char dummy[TBLOCK]; struct header { char name[NAMESIZ]; char mode[8]; char uid[8]; char gid[8]; char size[12]; char mtime[12]; char chksum[8]; char linkflag; char linkname[NAMESIZ]; } dbuf; } dblock, tbuf[NBLOCK];" Laird J. Heal Here: laird@chinet.chi.il.us