Re: [h-e-w] Installing Emacs 21.3

[friedman_hill ernest j]

I think Jason Rumney wrote:
> address@hidden (friedman_hill ernest j) writes:
> 
> > No, indeed. Default is /dev/rmt0, the tape device. The f - is quite
> > necessary.
> 
> /dev/rmt0 is not even standard across Unix systems, so I doubt
> it. Every version of tar I have ever used defaults to stdin, and I
> would be VERY surprised to find a Windows port of tar that defaulted
> to a device that exists only on Linux, BSD and AIX based systems.

Huh. Using "f -" is quite hardwired in my brain, because when I
learned to use 'tar', the default was absolutely the tape device. I
recall having an intern who simply couldn't remember this, and would
overwrite other people's tapes on a regular basis (this was on SGI
hardware running IRIX 4.) By the time Linux came along, I was quite
used to the "f -".

Well, I went to look at the man and info pages for GNU tar, and
learned that GNU tar defaults to standard input since version 1.11.5,
which looks to have come out in August 1994. Before that, the default
was the default tape device or the device in the environment variable
named TAPE. If 1994 seems like ancient history to you, then indeed, it
makes sense to assume tar defaults to standard input.

Thanks for the info.



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Ernest Friedman-Hill  
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