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To: "Eugene Rosenzweig" <eugenius AT dingoblue DOT net DOT au>
Cc: <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: Re: tar -f behaviour
References: <0c6501c1bed4$f548d5e0$0300a8c0 AT bluebox>
From: "Julien Gilles" <jgilles AT glmultimedia DOT com>
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 16:39:24 +0100
In-Reply-To: <0c6501c1bed4$f548d5e0$0300a8c0@bluebox> ("Eugene Rosenzweig"'s
 message of "Wed, 27 Feb 2002 01:50:38 +1100")
Message-ID: <7radtw9rrn.fsf@glmultimedia.com>
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"Eugene Rosenzweig" <eugenius AT dingoblue DOT net DOT au> writes:

> Looking at tar I noticed a small oddity in its behaviour, as compared to
> what I would have thought was 'normal'
> When dealing with files, using dash before options, the 'f' option has to be
> the last one in the option string, e.g.
>
> In conclusion, is this a bug or a feature?

A (normal) feature. 

In GNU world, options starts with one or two dash, and you can write : 
tar --file=file
tar -f file
tar -ffile

If fact the syntax 'tar zcf file' is an old syntax, only kept for
compatibility, it should be read : 'tar -z -c -f file'.

-- 
Julien Gilles


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