Tar question

[Edgar_10]

Hi,

I have a directory with approx.200000 files and would like to tar all to 1 file before copying to tape drive.My tar command fails stating that argument list too long.Any ideas on a work around?

Regards,

[Stefan Farrelly]

use xargs first, eg. in the dir with the 200k files;

ls | xargs tar cf

[twang]

# tar cvf /tmp/dir.tar /dir
# tar cvf /dev/rmt/1m /tmp/dir.tar

[Bruno Vidal]

Hi
Your tar command is failing because you are using "tar cvf /tmp/myfile *" . Instead do:
"tar cvf /tmp/myfile . "
(in the case of * the shell replace * by all the files -> your command line is too long), replace it by ., and tar while be executed on the file ., -> ie all files of this directory.

Cheers.

[T G Manikandan]

check this link

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xd4ce5a3e6e0bd6118ff40090279cd0f9,00.html