[Help-tar] Help with TAR new-volume-script

[Patrick Varley]

I am just writing because I am trying to use TAR in Ubuntu in order to backup a large amount of data (about 40 GB).  I want to break it down into 2 GB files.  I have no problems getting the multi-part functionality to work, but I want to use a script so I don't have to type in a new filename every minute.

I have tried to use the one in the TAR documentation, which should just automatically add volume labels to the new files as each part finishes.  It is:
     #! /bin/sh
     echo Preparing volume $TAR_VOLUME of $TAR_ARCHIVE.
     
     name=`expr $TAR_ARCHIVE : '\(.*\)-.*'`
     case $TAR_SUBCOMMAND in
     -c)       ;;
     -d|-x|-t) test -r ${name:-$TAR_ARCHIVE}-$TAR_VOLUME || exit 1
        ;;
     *)        exit 1
     esac
     
     echo ${name:-$TAR_ARCHIVE}-$TAR_VOLUME >&3

But it is not working.  When one part finished, the script starts, but then halts,
 saying:

Preparing volume of .
expr: syntax error
tar: `increment' command failed
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
 
I am not sure how to fix this, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Patrick Varley

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