From: fjh AT cs DOT mu DOT OZ DOT AU (Fergus Henderson) Subject: Re: .tar.gz 30 Jul 1997 06:57:39 -0700 Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: <199707300308.NAA20270.cygnus.gnu-win32@murlibobo.cs.mu.OZ.AU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Original-To: dahms AT ifk20 DOT mach DOT uni-karlsruhe DOT de Original-Cc: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com In-Reply-To: <009B7FFD.653E8040.20198@ifk20.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de> from "dahms@ifk20.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de" at "Jul 29, 97 11:12:49 pm" X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL15 (25)] Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com dahms AT ifk20 DOT mach DOT uni-karlsruhe DOT de, you wrote: > Hi Fergus, you wrote: > > : Yes, but the 'z' option to tar is not portable, so I can't use that. :-( > > But g*zip is not portable, either, only *compress is "standard" on unix. > You can just as well install gtar, under that name, too (or link on Linux). We distribute our software only in .tar.gz form. In order to execute it, the user must have unpacked it first, and to unpack it, they must have g*zip (and tar). But they might not have GNU tar. Also, if they happen to not have gzip, the error message "gzip: command not found" will be pretty clear. Whereas if we invoke tar with the 'z' option, it might just do the wrong thing. E.g. on the system I'm posting this from: | z Positions the tape after the EOF marker on extraction or listing. The | z option allows the user to extract or list tapes that have multiple | archives on them one after the other without error as a result of the | tape not being positioned correctly for the next extraction or listing. -- Fergus Henderson | "I have always known that the pursuit WWW: | of excellence is a lethal habit" PGP: finger fjh AT 128 DOT 250 DOT 37 DOT 3 | -- the last words of T. S. Garp. - For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".