Henning P. Schmiedehausen wrote:
> Hans Reiser <[email protected]> writes:
>
>>simple tests like this. We recently ran into one with tar recognizing
>>that it was writing to /dev/null, and optimizing for it.
>
> As stated in the info document. It is there for a reason (Amanda).
>
> --- cut ---
> When the archive is being created to `/dev/null', GNU `tar' tries to
> minimize input and output operations. The Amanda backup system, when
> used with GNU `tar', has an initial sizing pass which uses this feature.
> --- cut ---
IMHO /dev/null shouldn't be used for this. What's wrong
with Amanda doing: ln -s /dev/null /dev/drop
Then optimizing tars can use /dev/drop to not write()
and non-optimizing tars will still work as expected?
P?draig.