Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi All,

Can anyone help me out to create a tar file and append files to the tar files.. In the AIX server, which we use, tar has only the below options

Usage: tar -{c|r|t|u|x} [ -BdDEFhilmopRUsvw ] [ -Number ] [ -f TarFile ]
[ -b Blocks ] [ -S [ Feet ] | [ Feet@Density ] | [ Blocksb ] ]
[ -L InputList ] [-X ExcludeFile] [ -N Blocks ] [ -C Directory ] File ...

Here is what i am trying to do
1) Open the file testfile
2) Tar the contents of the testfile to test.tar

$ for i in `cat testfile`
> do
> tar cvf test.tar $i
> done
a ./allusers 1 blocks.
a ./allusersfinger 6 blocks.

But when i list the tar file, i could see only the last file of the inputfile testfile

$ tar tvf test.tar
-rw-r----- 2232511 6657 2767 Apr 22 21:53:17 2008 ./allusersfinger

I tired u and r options to append the files, but didn't work either.. Please let me know is there any other options to achieve this..

Thanks in advance !!

In the way that you propose, you are makign a new tar archive with each interation of the look.

You could try to use the file as a list input to tar.

tar cvf tarfile.tar -I testfile

tar will then pick up all the entries in the file "testfile" and bring those files into the tar archive.

Many Thanks Grippo !! But i am afraid if any options is missing. The testfile has the below entries

$ cat testfile
./allusers
./allusersfinger

When i ran the command, the output is as below

$ tar cvf tarfile.tar -I testfile
tar: -I: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
a testfile 1 blocks.

$ tar tvf tarfile.tar
-rw-r----- 2232511 6657 28 May 26 13:57:15 2008 testfile

where it is adding the testfile itself to the tarfile.tar, wherein it should add the entries of the testfile..

May be worth checking the man page for tar on you machine and check that it has the -I flag?

I normally work on Solaris and Linux.

However, the -I flag will take an input file to allow you to specify a list for inclusion into the tar archive.

from the man page on Solaris:

-I include-file Opens include-file containing a list
of files, one per line, and treats
it as if each file appeared
separately on the command line. Be
careful of trailing white spaces.
Also beware of leading white spaces,
since, for each line in the included
file, the entire line (apart from
the newline) will be used to match
against the initial string of files
to include. In the case where
excluded files (see X function
modifier) are also specified, they
take precedence over all included
files. If a file is specified in
both the exclude-file and the
include-file (or on the command
line), it will be excluded.

Hi Grippo,

We do not have the -I option available in our man page

I do not know if the version of tar installed has someting to do with the options available

$ lslpp -w /usr/bin/tar
File Fileset Type
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
/usr/bin/tar bos.rte.archive File

$ lslpp -l bos.rte.archive

Fileset Level State Description
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Path: /usr/lib/objrepos
bos.rte.archive 5.3.0.51 COMMITTED Archive Commands

Path: /etc/objrepos
bos.rte.archive 5.3.0.51 COMMITTED Archive Commands

Wow !! I got it.. It worked as below

$ tar cvfL test.tar testfile
a ./allusers 1 blocks.
a ./allusersfinger 6 blocks.

$ tar tvf test.tar
-rw-r----- 2232511 6657 479 Apr 22 21:52:40 2008 ./allusers
-rw-r----- 2232511 6657 2767 Apr 22 21:53:17 2008 ./allusersfinger