On Thu, 13 Nov 1997, Brad Salai wrote:

> There is a thing about tar that makes it slightly harder to use than it
> might otherwise be.
> 
> You have to get the options in the right order,
> 
> tar -zxvpf bin.tar.gz   works, but
> 
> tar -zxvfp bin.tar.gz   doesn't
> 
> Once you know this, only the occasional tyop causes problems, but why does
> it have to be that way?

Because option f takes the file name AS THE NEXT ARGUMENT. Other than the
filename being after "f", you can re-arange the options in whatever order
you wish.

tar -xzvpf  == tar -zxvpf == tar -xvzpf

> As for ftp, mget is a nice idea, but it asks you to confirm that you still
> want  each file as it comes up. This makes it impossible to just get a
> collection of files, either by matching a pattern, or listing the files,
> without sitting there.

Type "prompt" at the ftp prompt. It switches from interactive to batch
mode.

Take care,

Bill