Re: File System Performance

[Steve Lord]

On Mon, 2001-11-12 at 16:16, Andrew Morton wrote:

> 
> Actually, tar _is_ doing funnies with /dev/null.  Changelog says:
> 
> 1995-12-21  François Pinard  <[e-mail]>
> 
>         * buffer.c: Rename a few err variables to status.
>         * extract.c: Rename a few check variables to status.
> 
>         Corrections to speed-up the sizeing pass in Amanda:
>         * tar.h: Declare dev_null_output.
>         * buffer.c (open_archive): Detect when archive is /dev/null.
>         (flush_write): Avoid writing to /dev/null.
>         * create.c (dump_file): Do not open file if archive is being
>         written to /dev/null, nor read file nor restore times.
>         Reported by Greg Maples and Tor Lillqvist.
> 
> One wonders why.

For almost 6 years too - I suspect they optimized tar instead of
fixing the way amanda works.

Steve