limes@sun.com (Greg Limes) (07/21/89)
Steve Elias (eli@chipcom.chipcom.com) writes: > sunos 4.0.3 documentation refers to the 'asf' option of the mt command. > this is an undocumented option, i think. > it seems to act like "mt fsf"... I am probably the *second* best person to answer this one. I have up on my wall the revised "MT(1)" manual page, given to me by the engineer that rammed the asf capability through the various levels of kernel and utility support requirements. Just as "FSF" is "Forward Space File" and "BSF" is "Backward Space File", this now gives you "ASF", or "Absolute Space File". Very Very Very useful for getting from somewhere random on the tape to file number four, without rewinding first (for most tapes). I understand that the code is robust in the face of failures, falling back to a "rewind and start spacing forward" strategy when all else fails, but I have not actually observed this behavior in action. Greg Limes limes@sun.com ...!sun!limes 73327,2473 [chose one]