[comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d] WANTED: TAR UNCOMPRESSOR FOR MS-DOS

jhl2@po.CWRU.Edu (John H. Leach) (02/12/91)

If anyone has a copy of a .tar decompressor for an MS-Dos machine
i would appreciate it if you could email me a copy.  On a 
similar note, does anyone know why alot of the stuff on anonymous
ftp sites is tarred and .Z compressed both?

Just curious...

ThANKS.
-- 
Norbert Sykes, a.k.a. THE BADGER

jim@newmedia.UUCP (Jim Beveridge) (02/14/91)

In article <1991Feb13.060554.4933@hoss.unl.edu>, vandevek@fergvax.unl.edu (James M. VandeVegt) writes:
> In article <1991Feb12.043510.6138@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> jhl2@po.CWRU.Edu (John H. Leach) writes:
> >
> >If anyone has a copy of a .tar decompressor for an MS-Dos machine
> >i would appreciate it if you could email me a copy.  On a 
> >similar note, does anyone know why alot of the stuff on anonymous
> >ftp sites is tarred and .Z compressed both?
> >
> {$F=1}      {Turn flame mode on}
> Tar is NOT a compressor.  It mearly places numerous
> files into one file so that they can be stored together
> for ease of later finding them and making sense out of them.
> {$F=0}

{$F=maybe}
Well, actually, if you have one of the new versions of tar that
can automatically call compress, then it *looks* like it does
compression...   (I know, it really calls compress, but try
explaining fork(), wait(), system(), etc. to a new user.)
{$F=disable}


In answer to the original question:
tar(1) allows you to create a single file that contains an exact
duplicate of some part of a directory tree.  Directory names,
owner, permissions, etc are all preserved in the tar file.
You then compress it to make it smaller and reduce disk space
and/or reduce network bandwidth when the file is posted.

I recommend getting the MKS Toolkit for _anyone_ who needs
Unix commands frequently under DOS.  The only problem 
I know of is that MKS compress can't handle 16 bit encoding.
(So I have another PD compress/uncompress that does)
The MKS tar works great.  (I don't work for them, I'm just
a satisfied user)

		Jim

vandevek@fergvax.unl.edu (James M. VandeVegt) (02/15/91)

In article <444@newmedia.UUCP> jim@newmedia.UUCP (Jim Beveridge) writes:
>In article <1991Feb13.060554.4933@hoss.unl.edu>, vandevek@fergvax.unl.edu (James M. VandeVegt) writes:
>> {$F=1}      {Turn flame mode on}
>> Tar is NOT a compressor.  It mearly places numerous
>> files into one file so that they can be stored together
>> for ease of later finding them and making sense out of them.
>> {$F=0}
>
>{$F=maybe}
>Well, actually, if you have one of the new versions of tar that
>can automatically call compress, then it *looks* like it does
>compression...   (I know, it really calls compress, but try
>explaining fork(), wait(), system(), etc. to a new user.)
>{$F=disable}
>
Thank you for this valuable information, I will look for a
unix version of tar that does this.


| James M. VandeVegt             |  University of Nebraska           |
| vandevek@fergvax.unl.edu       |  Computer Science and Engineering |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|                  Insert standard disclaimer here.                  |

butler@saturn.sdsu.edu (Michael Butler) (02/16/91)

In article <1991Feb15.142501.7632@hoss.unl.edu> vandevek@fergvax.unl.edu (James M. VandeVegt) writes:
>In article <444@newmedia.UUCP> jim@newmedia.UUCP (Jim Beveridge) writes:
>>In article <1991Feb13.060554.4933@hoss.unl.edu>, vandevek@fergvax.unl.edu (James M. VandeVegt) writes:
>>> {$F=1}      {Turn flame mode on}
>>> Tar is NOT a compressor.  It mearly places numerous
>>> files into one file so that they can be stored together
>>> for ease of later finding them and making sense out of them.
>>> {$F=0}
>>
>>{$F=maybe}
>>Well, actually, if you have one of the new versions of tar that
>>can automatically call compress, then it *looks* like it does
>>compression...   (I know, it really calls compress, but try
>>explaining fork(), wait(), system(), etc. to a new user.)
>>{$F=disable}
>>
>Thank you for this valuable information, I will look for a
>unix version of tar that does this.

That UNIX version of tar is gnutar with the -z option.

Mike Butler