What's wrong with this command?

[Steven M. Klass]

On Tuesday 26 June 2001 11:17, the famous AZ_Pete wrote:
> I don't know if this will answer your questions directly, but here's what I
> note with the command as you've listed it:
> find $SOURCE -type d -exec tar -czvf $BACKUPDIR/{}/badkup.tar.gz
> SOURCE/{}\:
>
> 1) When you use the exec portion of the find command it will call an
> instance of tar for EACH file that is found.  If find returns 10 files, 10
> instances of tar will be called.  This will cause your backup file to only
> contain the last file called by exec because each time tar is called it
> will overwrtie the previously saved file.  To resolve this you must use the
> append flag, see man tar.

Isn't the standard tar command 'tar -czvf file.tar.gz files2tar'?  So All I 
am doing by the first part is filling in the where to source from and where 
to put it, right?

> 2) If find returns many, many files the script will be slow because of
> calling tar so many times. I would recommend using xargs to pass the files
> to tar.

Could you explain how this would speed it up, I'm confused?

> 3) I am unclear on your need to recreate the directory structure.

This was decided for me.. :(

> Tar can
> be called using either relative dirs or absolute dirs. When you untar the
> backup file the directory structure will be recreated automatically.  What
> I have done when I need to only tar selected directories is make a text
> file with a list of directories.  There is a flag for tar that will then
> read the external file and process only those directories.  There is also a
> flag to do the opposite, tar everything execpt the directories listed in
> the external text file.  I have used a combination of these two to make a
> backup script which allowed me to perform very specific directory backups.
> Maintence was very simple in that I only had to maintain 2 text files - one
> which listed the directories to include (ie. user's home dirs) and one
> which listed which directories to exclude (i.e. /proc)

Thanks a lot peter.

> Hope this helps,
> Peter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> [mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of Steven
> M. Klass
> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 9:33 AM
> To: PLUG
> Subject: What's wrong with this command?
>
>
> Hey all,
>
> I am working on a back-up script.  I'm really into the meat of if right now
> and I can't figure out how to do something.  Basically my backup script
> will recreate the directory structure and only tar the files in the
> directory. To
> recreate the directory structure I use
>   find $SOURCE -type d -exec mkdir $BACKUPDIR{} \;
>
> Now for the fun part looking into each directory and and only taring the
> files and symbolic links.. I'm trying variations of the above to no avail.
> Here is the idea that I have been working with..
>
> find $SOURCE -type d -exec tar -czvf $BACKUPDIR/{}/badkup.tar.gz
> SOURCE/{}\:
>
> This doesn't work. Can someone help me out here? Do I need to implement
> this into a larger function?
>
> --
>
> Steven M. Klass
> Physical Design Engineering Manager
>
> Andigilog Inc.
> 7404 W. Detroit Street, Suite 100
> Chandler, AZ 85226
> Ph: 480-940-6200 ext. 18
> Fax: 480-940-4255
>
> sklass@andigilog.com
> http://www.andigilog.com
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-- 

Steven M. Klass
Physical Design Engineering Manager

Andigilog Inc.
7404 W. Detroit Street, Suite 100
Chandler, AZ 85226
Ph: 480-940-6200 ext. 18
Fax: 480-940-4255

sklass@andigilog.com
http://www.andigilog.com