[lug] cpio

[Bear Giles]

Robert wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-04-07 at 20:38, Bear Giles wrote:
>>>"cpio: premature end of file"
>>
>>You need to either use
>>
>>  find ... -print0 | cpio -oA0 ...
>>
>>or
>>
>>  find ... -print | cpio -oA ...
>>
>>The former is preferred since it will handle files with embedded 
>>spaces.
> 
>   I tried both, the first results in the same error, the second brings
> up the MAN cpio page, indicating incorrect syntax.

I just verified that both forms worked on my system, esp.

   find /etc -print0 | cpio -o0F foo
   find /dev -print0 | cpio -o0AF foo

 From your message, I'm not sure if you typed '0' (zero) or 'O' 
(capital letter between 'N' and 'P').  These are very different 
options, and the man page clearly states that 'A' must be followed 
by either 'O' or 'F' specifying an existing and valid cpio 
archive.  (It looks like 'F' specifies a local file, 'O' provides 
some level of support for networked backups.)

Meanwhile, at the risk of having you mocked on this list for 
months >:-)~, you have verified that the cpio archive you're 
appending to is a valid cpio archive, right?  Your message looks a 
lot like an error you might get when attempting to append to 
something that's not an archive - the error would be on the cpio 
side, not the find side.

Bear