VMSPREP(LOCAL)															    VMSPREP(LOCAL)

NAME

       vmsprep - VMS tape preperation aid

SYNOPSIS

       vmsprep [-] [name ...]

DESCRIPTION

       Vmsprep	traverses  hierarchies	of files and prepares them for transportation to VMS.  Since ANSI stardard tapes (the VMS standard) do not
       allow hierarchy, this program provides a method of flattening the hierarchy onto a tape in such a way that it can be  unpacked  on  VMS	to
       recreate the same tree structure.

       For  reasons  best not described here, vmsprep will attempt to exclude all RCS and SCCS archives by ignoring all files or directories named
       'RCS' or 'SCCS', or files starting with 's.' or ending in ',v'.

       The output of vmsprep is a pair of files vmsprep.namelist and UNPACK.COM.  vmsprep.namelist is a list of files to be placed on the tape	in
       the  format required by ansitape.  If the first argument is '-' instead of a file or directory name, vmsprep will instead send the namelist
       to standard output, and place UNPACK.COM in /tmp to avoid attempting to write in the current directory.	All of the files except UNPACK.COM
       will  be  placed  on the tape under cryptic names.  UNPACK.COM is a VMS command script which will recreate all of the necessary directories
       and then move the cryptically named files to their proper place.

       A typical sequence would be:
	      vmsprep - tree1 tree2 file | ansitape cln trees -
       Then on a VMS machine
	      mount MFA0: trees
	      copy MFA0:*.*.* *
	      @UNPACK

FILES

       vmsprep.namelist
       UNPACK.COM

DIAGNOSTICS

       A warning is reported if a file or directory name contains a character not permitted in VMS names.  The offending character is replaced	by
       'Z' and vmsprep continues.

SEE ALSO

       ansitape(l)

BUGS

       Extra periods in file names may not be dealt with optimally.
       All  files and directories to be moved must be descendants of the current working directory.  Absolute path names and paths containing ".."
       will produce unpredictable results.
       Since vmsprep uses find(1) internally, it does not follow symbolic links.
       The exclusion of RCS and SCCS files should be controlled by a command line flag.
       Assumes VMS v4.0 or greater for long file names.

								 4/10/85 UCB Local						    VMSPREP(LOCAL)