Re: [Bug-tar] wishlist: transparent compression on file- and not archive level

[Christian Hammers]

On 2006-07-17 Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Christian Hammers <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > > You either need to compress the file 2 times in order to get the 
> > > compressed 
> > > size before archiving and then it will fail if the file changes meanwhile
> > > 
> > > Or you compress to a /tmp file and then you have an unknown size limit 
> > > for 
> > > compressed files.......
> >
> > The approach I thought of was the second. Surely there would be a new size
> > limit but it could be documented and would most probably not discourage
> > most admins from using the new option. Especially when creating a backup
> > file one has to care for free disk space anyway.
> 
> But you cannot even know before you did end with the compression
> whether the result will fit into /tmp.

If it does not, tar will simply exit with a "No space left on device while
creating temporary file /tmp/fileXXXXX" message.

Surely, this new feature would imply at least one new possible problem 
cause but that's IMHO an acceptable tradeoff for *not* getting a "no space
left" message when using no compression at all and the medium gets full :-)))

(of course, tar should honor $TMPDIR like mktemp(1) at least)

bye,

-christian-

-- 
Christian Hammers             WESTEND GmbH  |  Internet-Business-Provider
Technik                       CISCO Systems Partner - Authorized Reseller
                              Lütticher Straße 10      Tel 0241/701333-11
address@hidden                D-52064 Aachen              Fax 0241/911879