ted@maui.cs.ucla.edu (Theodore Bujewski) (06/05/91)
I am unsure of how to uncompress and untar many of the files at the
archive sites. I have retrieved many files and have tried to
uncompress them and untar them with the command
zcat "file".tar.Z | tar -xvf -
I have also tried several permutations of this. The result is either
it works or I get a checksum error. My question is: Is this a problem
with the commands I am using, my machine, the way I am retrieving the
file, or the way I am transfering the file onto my machine? (I
download the ftp file to a DOS floppy and then copy it to my Next).
I would really appreciate it if someone would tell me what I need to
do. There are a lot of files which do not work.
Thanks in advance,
Ted (ted@cs.ucla.edu)
(BTW This may be a stupid question, but what is a checksum error?)grdetil@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gilles R. Detillieux) (06/06/91)
In <1991Jun4.214435.3787@cs.ucla.edu> ted@maui.cs.ucla.edu (Theodore Bujewski) writes: >I am unsure of how to uncompress and untar many of the files at the >archive sites. I have retrieved many files and have tried to >uncompress them and untar them with the command > zcat "file".tar.Z | tar -xvf - >I have also tried several permutations of this. The result is either >it works or I get a checksum error. My question is: Is this a problem >with the commands I am using, my machine, the way I am retrieving the >file, or the way I am transfering the file onto my machine? (I >download the ftp file to a DOS floppy and then copy it to my Next). >I would really appreciate it if someone would tell me what I need to >do. There are a lot of files which do not work. The mostly likely error I can think of offhand is you didn't explicitly tell ftp to do a binary transfer. Most implementations of ftp default to a text file transfer, which wreaks havock on a compressed tar archive. You usually have to give a "binary" command before the "get" or "mget" command. Some ftp's have a "bget" command for binary files. Check your documentation. >Thanks in advance, >Ted (ted@cs.ucla.edu) >(BTW This may be a stupid question, but what is a checksum error?) "tar" calculates a checksum for each directory entry in the archive, then verifies it on extraction, to see if the entry is valid. Hope this helps. -- Gilles Detillieux <Gilles@scrc.UManitoba.CA> Spinal Cord Research Centre or <grdetil@ccu.UManitoba.CA> Dept. of Physiology, U. of Manitoba Phone: (204)788-6766 Winnipeg, MB R3E 0W3 (Canada) Fax: (204)786-0932