Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: POSIX compatible tar(1)
Message-ID: <3377@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 26 Sep 89 14:11:53 GMT
References: <261@nikhefh.nikhef.nl> <1002@mgse.UUCP>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 19

In article <1002@mgse.UUCP> marks@mgse.UUCP (Mark Seiffert) writes:
>what i can't understand yet is how
>you people plan on backing up your systems. 

I wrote a little program, backup.c, which I posted a few weeks ago.
Tar is tape oriented, whereas on a PC, floppy disk is the obvious medium
to use.  Why simulate a sequential tape on a random access device?  To
use backup, you give the name of the directory you want to backup, and the
program compares the modification time of the file to see if the backup 
version is still valid.  If not, it copies it to the diskette.  I use this
program all the time, and it works fine.  I have made some changes to it
(e.g., don't backup up core images, etc.) and I will post it with 1.4b.

I also have written a cross referencer and a program to take a patched file
plus the cdif and print the patched file with the changed lines marked with
! and +.  I also have Dick van Veen's man program and some other utilities.
Again, I'll post all this stuff shortly.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)