From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: To: astitt@cats.ucsc.edu, 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] dumb question From: "rob pike, esq." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 13:45:23 -0400 Topicbox-Message-UUID: ba11cb54-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > i beg to differ, tar uses memory, it uses system resources, i fail to see > how you think this is just as good as just recursively copying files. The > point is I shouldnt have to needlessly use this other program (for Tape > ARchives) to copy directorys. If this is on a fairly busy file server > needlessly running tar twice is simply wasteful and unacceptable when you > could just follow the directory tree. The command tar c ... | tar x ... will have almost identical cost to any explicit recursive copy, since it does the same amount of work. The only extra overhead is writing to and reading from the pipe, which is so cheap - and entirely local - that it is insignificant. Whether you cp or tar, you must read the files from one tree and write them to another. -rob