tar -xzf equiv Problems with pipes in HP-UX

[Jeff Sadowski_2]

Ok I wanted to try this out in most POSIX OS's pipes are done on the fly. If HP-UX is doing this why is the following not working

[root@rx2600 working]$gunzip -c \
/working/B.11.23_archive.gz | tar -xf -
/working/B.11.23_archive.gz: Value too large to be stored in data type
Tar: blocksize = 0; broken pipe?

This seems to work with small files.
A pipe isn't suppose to store all of what it is being fed. Its suppose to send it through to the other program hence the name pipe. What is going on.

[Patrick Wallek]

I can't explain why that is working, but have you tried gzcat instead?

Try this:

gzcat /working/B.11.23_archive.gz | tar -xf -

I have used the above successfully on gzip files of more than 1GiB in size.

[Jeff Sadowski_2]

[root@rx2600 test]$gzcat /working/B.11.23_archive.gz.files | tar -xf -
/working/B.11.23_archive.gz.files: Value too large to be stored in data type
Tar: blocksize = 0; broken pipe?

Same issue I really think its a problem with pipes in HP-UX and if it is how do I report this bug? This is most definitely a breaking of POSIX. This works for a small file but not for an ignite backup

[Jeff Sadowski_2]

test that it works on small files

[root@rx2600 test]$ echo test > test.txt
[root@rx2600 test]$ tar -cf - test.txt | gzip -f - > test.tar.gz
[root@rx2600 test]$ rm test.txt
[root@rx2600 test]$ gzcat test.tar.gz | tar -xf -
[root@rx2600 test]$ cat test.txt
test

mine also worked

[root@rx2600 test]$ rm test.txt
[root@rx2600 test]$ gunzip -c test.tar.gz | tar -xf -
[root@rx2600 test]$ cat test.txt
test

[Jeff Sadowski_2]

[root@rx2600 test]$ gunzip B.11.23_archive.gz
B.11.23_archive.gz: Value too large to be stored in data type

[Jeff Sadowski_2]

that proves it isn't quite like I thought it is not a pipe issue it is a gunzip issue.

[Steven Schweda · Accepted solution]

> [...] it is not a pipe issue it is a gunzip
> issue.

Apparently. So, what are you using for
"gunzip"/"gzcat"/"gzip"?

There's a reference to a 1.3.x version of
"gzip" which is supposed to be large-file
capable, at:

http://www.gzip.org/

I haven't done much with gzip and large
files, but it's also just possible that it
would work if gzip never actually saw the
file. For example:

cat archive.gz | gzip -cd | tar -xf -

[Jeff Sadowski_2]

thank you thank you thank you :-)

[Steven Schweda]

> thank you thank you thank you :-)

If that was meant to imply that "cat" made
the difference, blame a Google search for:

gzip "Value too large to be stored in data type"

There seems to be a bunch of useful info on
this new inter-web thing.

[Jeff Sadowski_2]

yes cat worked
hmm thats odd I googled the same and got only japanese stuff that I couldn't read.

[Dennis Handly]

Can you break it down to figure out which pipe component is giving the error? It seems it is gunzip that has the problem, since that is the name in the message. How big is B.11.23_archive.gz?

If this is over 2 Gb, then the problem is with the non-supported gunzip. Unless a newer version supports large files??

[Jeff Sadowski_2]

it was a problem of opening a file directly with gunzip or gzip to get around it I used pipes with cat and it all worked as it should