tar or cpio, which is better?

[Greg A. Woods]

In article <4322 at awdprime.UUCP> tif at doorstop.austin.ibm.com (Paul Chamberlain) writes:
> In article <1990Nov21.172717.16845 at eci386.uucp> woods at eci386.UUCP (Greg A. Woods) writes:
> >They [the standards bodies] are way ahead of you....  POSIX 1003.1
> >defines two portable archive interchange formats: extended tar, and
> >extended cpio.  POSIX 1003.2 Draft 9 / August 1989 defines a programme
> >called "pax - portable archive interchange" which supports both of
> >these formats.  A third new format is under development to "address
> >all restrictions and new requirements for security labeling, etc."
> 
> Is this third format the PAX native format?  I seem to recall that
> PAX had a third format.

No.  The new format will most likely be incompatible with either of
the two current formats.  I don't have a copy of 1003.1, but I don't
think enough has been published about the third format to allow an
expermimental implementation.

The pax we are running has only the two formats, though it has three
user interfaces: tar, cpio, and 1003.2-pax.  The default file format
for the tar and pax interfaces is the extended tar format.
-- 
							Greg A. Woods
woods@{eci386,gate,robohack,ontmoh,tmsoft}.UUCP		ECI and UniForum Canada
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