UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello

I am trying to select multiple files older than 14 days and create a single compressed file out of it. (AIX Release 3 Version 5)

I am trying to achieve it by following

Code:

tar -cvf db01_log.tar `find . -name "db01*.log" -mtime +14" -print`| gzip > db01_log.tar

however it just created a tar file and not tar.gz file

could you please suggest on this?

Thanks and Regards
Chetanz

Write tar to stdout = -

Code:

tar -cvf - `find . -name "db01*.log" -mtime +14" -print`| gzip > db01_log.tar

DGPickett is correct: either "tar" writes to a file (then the pipe is empty) or to <stdout>, but not both. There are some other things with your code you might want to change:

First, obviously, you shouldn't use backticks any more. Use "$(...)" instead.

Second: "gzip" is - because of the way it works - a single-threaded program. If the amount of data you compress is huge it might take a very long time. Even if your system has several processors you will always use only one. If you want to overcome this you will have to distribute the files to back up over as many "tar"s as there are processors (sort them by size and use a round-robin scheme to balance the sizes) and then gzip each tar. This way you put all system processors to use.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Hello DGPickett and Bakunin

Thanks for your quick response

I used the following, word to word and space to space

But it created only the tar file and no gz file at all

Code:

tar -cvf - `find . -name "db01_rman*04*Jan*.log" -mtime +14 -print`| gzip > db01_rman04Jan.log.tar

Please suggest

Thanks and Regards
Chetanz

if you can live without tar use:

Code:

find ... criteria ... | backup -if - | bzip2 >myfile.bff.bz2

or gzip if you prefer that. bzip2 was my habit speaking.

Actually this should have done what you (and we) expected it to do, but when you insist in naming a gzipped tar-file "*.tar" the OS will not put any obstacles before you.

This means: replace "> something.tar" with "something.tar.gz" and - voilá!

You will find out that the output you named ".tar" is no tar file at all when you try to untar it. It probably will complain about some "checksum error", which is, because it simply is no tar-file. But if you try to unpack it by:

Code:

mv your.tar your.tar.gz
gzip -cd your.tar.gz | tar -xf -

You will notice that this works. (gzip is just a bit picky about file extensions)

I hope this helps.

bakunin

i read over that. the eye sees what it wants to see!