[TUHS] Traditional method of dealing with embedded shar files

[Will Senn <will.senn@gmail.com>]

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As y'all know, I'm a relative latecomer to the world of Unix, but I do 
try to figure out how y'all did it back when. So, sometimes, as in this 
case, I can figure out how to do something, but I'm curious how it was 
done back in the day, moreso than how I can get it done today. I'm 
looking at the patching of my shiny new 2.11 BSD pl 431 system running 
on my speedy little virtual PDP-11/70, so I grabbed patch 432 (here's a 
portion of the patch):
...
     To install the update cut where indicated below and save to a file
     (/tmp/432) and then:

         cd /tmp
         sh 432
         ./432.sh
         ./432.rm
         sh 432.shar
         patch -p0 < 432.patch

     Watch carefully for any rejected parts of the patch.   Failure of a
     patch typically means the system was not current on all preceeding
     updates _or_ that local modifications have been made.
...
====== cut here
#! /bin/sh
# This is a shell archive, meaning:
# 1. Remove everything above the #! /bin/sh line.
# 2. Save the resulting text in a file.
# 3. Execute the file with /bin/sh (not csh) to create:
#    432.rm
#    432.sh
#    432.shar
#    432.patch
...
#    End of shell archive

This seems straightforward. Just follow the directions et voila magic 
happens.

My questions for y'all are how would you go about doing this? Use vi to 
delete everything through the ==== cut here line? Use some combination 
of standard unix tools to chop it up? What was your workflow for 
patching up the system using these files?

In my world, if I screw something up, it's 15 seconds to run a restore 
script in my simh directory and I can try again, so my level of concern 
for a mistake is pretty low. If I was doing this in 1980, on real 
hardware, I would have had many concerns, as I'm sure some of y'all can 
remember, how did you prepare and protect yourselves so a patch was 
successful.

BTW, I thought .shar was an archive format, so when I saw the patch was 
a shar file, I was worried it would be in some binary form, lo and 
behold, it looks like text to me... not even b64. So much to learn, so 
little time.

Thanks,

Will

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