Re: many packages FTBFS, if $TAPE is set
On Wed August 29 2007 1:28:32 pm Steinar H. Gunderson wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 01:20:52PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> >>> I don't think so. Hasn't tar defaulted to something approximately
> >>> /dev/rmt0 for *YEARS*, not just on Linux but on just about every
> >>> platform, if -f is not given?
> >>
> >> No.
> >
> > You cite nothing to back that up, and everything I can see shows that
> > you're incorrect. Let's look around a bit:
> >
> > * GNU Tar from Debian 1.1, version 1.11.8-5, dated Aug 25 1996:
>
> You're saying that tar has defaulted to /dev/rmt0 for years, which in
> common English indicates that it still does. What it defaulted to at some
Which seems to be the case everywhere but GNU tar anyway.
But no, that was not the intent. I meant exactly what I said: that tar has
defaulted to a tape device for many years. I think that the weight of
history is most certainly on that side.
> earlier point (no less than ten years in the past!) is something entirely
> different.
>
> > * GNU tar, present version: compile-time default, honors $TAPE
> > "usually it is standard output or some physical tape drive"
>
> ...which is far from "defaulting to /dev/rmt0" (the default, barring user
> intervention, is surely stdout), which means that no, tar does
> not default to /dev/rmt0 on "about every platform".
Hm, are you not counting the way I am? The *one* platform where it doesn't
default to the tape drive is Linux. And even there, the default is a
compile-time setting up to the whim of the local administrator (or
distribution builder, whatever the case may be).
This default has even changed within the lifetime of Debian.
And what's more, just about everybody seems to honor $TAPE.
Which is more than enough reason to always give -f in scripts.
-- John
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