On 08Mar2007 21:30, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: | Mike McCarty wrote: | >I have a backup script which I run on some sort of regular | >basis. I use tar to create an archive, which I then split | >into pieces of CDROM size (703MB) and write to CDROMs. | > | >Originally, I wrote it such that it added directories one | >by one to the archive, [...] | >Is there a way to get tar to use the archive it is adding to | >"in place"? I've read man and info, and I see --append | >(which is what I was using) and --catenate (which looks | >marginally faster, perhaps, since I compress), but see | >no way to make it "just do it" without doing an implicit | >copy. | > | | You can't append to an already gzipped file, Yes you can. It's pretty handy. Tar files have a terminating record. To append you need to overwrite that record, and that you can't do in compressed state. But I must be missing something. Why append to the tar file at all? Why not just make a lot of separate tar files? -- Cameron Simpson <cs@xxxxxxxxxx> DoD#743 http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/ On the contrary of what you may think, your hacker is fully aware of your company's dress code. He is fully aware of the fact that it doesn't help him to do his job. - Gregory Hosler <gregory.hosler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>