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dir: /sys/src/ape/cmd/pax/README/
PAX - Portable Archive Interchange
Copyright (C) 1989 Mark H. Colburn
All Rights Reserved.
Introduction
This is version 1.2 of Pax, an archiving utility.
Pax is an archiving utility that reads and writes tar and cpio formats,
both the traditional ones and the extended formats specified in IEEE
1003.1. It handles multi-volume archives and automatically determines
the format of an archive while reading it. Three user interfaces are
supported: tar, cpio, and pax. The pax interface was designed by IEEE
1003.2 as a compromise in the chronic controversy over which of tar or
cpio is best.
The USENIX Association provided some support for the initial
implementation of this product. As a result, the Pax utility is being
distributed free of charge and may be redistributed by others in either
source or binary form. (See the liscensing section for restrictions)
The source for Pax has been posted to comp.sources.unix on USENET and
will also be available by anonymous FTP on the Internet from uunet.uu.net,
moon.src.honeywell.com and from ucb-arpa.berkeley.edu. The source
to Pax is also available via anonymous UUCP from jhereg.mn.org, the
author's home machine and possibly other sites.
The source for Pax will continue to change as long as the definition of
the utility is modified by the 1003.2 working group. (For example,
there are a number of changes in Draft 8 which will be incorporated as
soon as Draft 8 is available). Additional modifications will be made
based on user input, such as request for support of additional archive
formats, etc. Patches and new releases will be made as new functionality
is added or problems are diagnosed and fixed.
Installation
In order to install Pax, you must first edit the Makefile and the
config.h file according to the directions in each of the files.
These two files provide the configuration information for most
commonly available machines. Please be sure to read through all
the directions in each of these files before attempting to compile
Pax.
Portability
Pax is intended to run on as many systems as possible. If you have
problems getting Pax to compile or run on your system, please let me
know so that the source or the installation procedure can be modified.
Pax has been tested and appears to run correctly on the following
machines:
Machine Operating System/Release
---------------------------------------------------
Altos 586 System III (2.3)
AT&T UNIX PC System V.2 (Release 3.51)
Convergent S/320 CTIX/68k 6.1, UNIX SysV 3.1
Cray 2 UNICOS
Encore CC 02.00.r088
HP 9000 HP/UX 6.0.1
IBM PC/AT Microport SV/AT V2.4
Mac II A/UX 1.0
NCR Tower System V.2
Pyramid AT&T and Berkeley universe
Sequent Symetry Dynix 3.0
SGI Iris 4D/60G UNIX 3.0
SGI Iris 4D/70G UNIX 3.0
SCO Xenix 386 2.3.2
SCO Unix 386 3.2
Sun 2 SunOS 3.4
Sun 2 SunOS 3.5
Sun 3 SunOS 3.4
Sun 3 SunOS 3.5
Sun 3 SunOS 4.0
Sun 4 SunOS 4.0
VAX 8750 BSD 4.3 (Mt. Xinu)
VAX 8650 BSD 4.3 (Mt. Xinu)
VAX 780 BSD 4.3 (Berkeley)
---------------------------------------------------
In future releases, the source will be moving toward ANSI C and POSIX
compatibility. This should allow for portability over any system
supporting both ANSI and POSIX. In addition, POSIX/ANSI portability
library routines will be developed which will allow the code to run on
the standard machines available now.
Credit Where Credit is Due
Parts of the code which makes up Pax were gleaned from a number of
different sources: the directory access routines in paxdir.h are
modified copies of Doug Gwyn's dirent library; the regular expression
matching routines in regexp.c are from Henry Spencer, some of the tar
archive routines were initially written by John Gilmore for his PDTAR;
and finally afio, written by Mark Brukhartz at Lachman Associates, was
the basis for the buffering schemes used in pax.
Licensing
Copyright (c) 1989 Mark H. Colburn.
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted
provided that the above copyright notice is duplicated in all such
forms and that any documentation, advertising materials, and other
materials related to such distribution and use acknowledge that the
software was developed by Mark H. Colburn and sponsored by The
USENIX Association.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Please report any bug or problems to:
Mark Colburn
Minnetech Consulting, Inc.
117 Mackubin St., Suite 1
St. Paul MN 55102
mark@jhereg.MN.ORG