incremental backups with tar

[Luke Davis]

First of all, using a dach on the x, c, f, etc., options, is optional, for 
many versions of tar.  I normally do use a dash, for consistancy--they are 
just normal options, after all, and there is no reason why they should not 
have a dash.

As to your first question: I don't know why, but you should use the new 
format.

For your third question: the file will be created by tar the first time 
you use it, and managed by it on following executions.

For example:

tar -g index.lst -cf backup.tar *



On Wed, 3 Nov 2004, Gregory Nowak wrote:

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> Hi all.
>
> The tar man page says the following:
>
> - -G, --incremental
>              create/list/extract old GNU-format incremental backup
>
>       -g, --listed-incremental F
>              create/list/extract new GNU-format incremental backup
>
>
>
> My first question is what is the difference between the old and new
> formats, and which one should I use (I'm assuming the new one)?
>
> My second question is -g (lowercase) option seems to expect a file
> name. However, I can't find anywhere what this file should
> contain. I'm assuming that this doesn't refer to the tar file being
> worked on.
>
> My final question is how should these options be specified? Should
> they be specified as -g or -G, or are they specified without the dash,
> just like you'd specify the x extract option, or the c create option
> without a dash? Looking at the tar man page, and help available from
> tar with the --help flag, seems to indicate that I would use a dash,
> before specifying any of the other regular options without a dash. I
> hope all these questions make sense, and any answers would be
> appreciated. Thanks in advance.
>
> Greg
>
>
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