Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: tar frustration Message-ID: <8340@smoke.ARPA> Date: 14 Aug 88 10:11:04 GMT References: <1670003@hpcilzb.HP.COM< <5762@super.upenn.edu< <1414@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu< <2858@ttrdc.UUCP< <7056@conexch.UUCP> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB)) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 10 In article <7056@conexch.UUCP> root@conexch.UUCP (Larry Dighera) writes: >This is so simple that it makes me feel like I don't understand the problem. That's right... > tar cvf /dev/whatever `cat file_of_names` There is a fairly small limit to the total number of bytes available for the arguments to a command; something like 4096 to 10240 bytes. It would be very easy to exceed this when archiving a large tree.