tar or cpio, which is better?

[Malcolm Preen]

sparks at power.viewlogic.com (Alan Sparks) writes:

>In article <1990Nov12.095657.22489 at erbe.se> prc at erbe.se (Robert Claeson) writes:
>>Using cpio instead worked just fine. Also, for backup purposes,
>>cpio is probably the best. It comes *standard* with the ability to
>>detect end-of-tape and create multi-volume archives. It has better
>>support for incremental backups and selective restores. And it supports
>>longer paths than tar's limit of 100 characters.

>Which version of cpio are you running?  The cpio man page on the
>Sun here says, "cpio does not support multiple volume tapes."
>(unquote).

On our system, Bull DPX/2-300 running a mix of system V and BSD the man page
for cpio says :

.........
          -I file
               Read the contents of file as input.  If file is a
               character special device, when the first medium is full
               replace the medium and type a carriage return to
               continue to the next medium.  Use only with the -i
               option.

          -O file
               Direct the output of cpio to file.  If file is a
               character special device, when the first medium is full
               replace the medium and type a carriage return to
               continue to the next medium.  Use only with the -o
               option.

          If cpio reaches end of medium (end of a diskette for
          example), when writing to (-o) or reading from (-i) a
          character special device, and -O and -I aren't used, cpio
          will print the message:

          If you want to go on, type device/file name when ready.
          To continue, you must replace the medium and type the
          character special device name (/dev/flop for example) and
          carriage return.  You may want to continue by directing cpio
          to use a different device.  For example, if you have two
          floppy drives you may want to switch between them so cpio
          can proceed while you are changing the floppies.  (A
          carriage return alone causes the cpio process to exit.)

-- 
|Malcolm Preen          |Malcolm.Preen at hemel.bull.co.uk|
|Bull HN Info. Sys. Ltd.|HM14 UK03                     |
|Maxted Road            |Tel: +44 442 232222 x4367     |
|Hemel Hempstead, UK    |Fax: +44 442 234084           |
+-----------------------+------------------------------+
-- 
|Malcolm Preen          |Malcolm.Preen at hemel.bull.co.uk|
|Bull HN Info. Sys. Ltd.|HM14 UK03                     |
|Maxted Road            |Tel: +44 442 232222 x4367     |
|Hemel Hempstead, UK    |Fax: +44 442 234084           |
+-----------------------+------------------------------+