ansitape.1m (2012 03)

ANSITAPE(1M) ANSITAPE(1M)
bs=blocksize
Specify the output blocksize , in bytes. As many records as will fit are crammed into each
physical tape block. ANSI standards limit this to 2048 bytes (the default), but you may
specify more or less. Be advised that specifying more may prevent some systems from read-
ing the tape.
rf=v Record format is variable-length. In other words, they are text files. This is the default, and
should be left alone unless you really know what you’re doing.
rf=f Record format is fixed-length. This is usually a bad choice, and should be reserved for
binary files. This also turns off the newline strip usually done for Unix text files.
cc=i Carriage control implied (default). Unlike Unix text files, where records are delimited by a
newline character, ANSI files do not normally include the newline as part of the record.
Instead, a newline is automatically added to the record whenever it is sent to a printing dev-
ice.
cc=f Carriage control Fortran. Each line is expected to start with a Fortran carriage-control
character. Ansitape does not insert these characters automatically, it merely marks the
file as having them. This is of limited usefulness. (Good opportunity for another ambitious
hacker.)
cc=e Carriage control is embedded. Carriage control characters (if any) are a part of the data
records. This is usually used in the case of binary data files.
AUTHOR
David S. Hayes, Site Manager, US Army Artificial Intelligence Center. Originally developed June 1986.
Revised August 1986. This software is in the public domain.
FILES
/dev/rmt? half-inch magnetic tape interface
/dev/rar? quarter-inch magnetic tape interface
/dev/rst? SCSI tape interface
SEE ALSO
dd(1), umask(2), mtio(4), tp(5).
BUGS
The
r (write) option cannot be used with quarter-inch archive tapes, since these tape drives cannot back-
space.
There is no way to ask for the n-th occurrence of a file.
Tape errors are handled ungracefully.
Files with names longer than 80 characters have the name truncated. This is a limitation of the ANSI
labelling standard. If the tape is made without HDR3 and HDR4 labels (
3 or i switch), the name is lim-
ited to 17 characters.
Multi-volume tape sets cannot yet be generated.
ansitape will read them just fine, but it won’t write
them. Unix provides no device-independent way to detect a physical end-of-tape. It was decided that a
2400-foot limitation was preferrable to device-dependence.
Note to Systems Programmers
ansitape uses a boolean function (eot) to determine when the tape drive has hit the end of file. It is
called every time a block of data is written to the tape. If this function ever returns TRUE (a defined con-
stant), an automatic volume switch occurs. The pertinent device registers are obtained by a MTIOCGET
ioctl system call. The registers are described in /sys/sundev/tmreg.h (Sun system with TapeMas-
ter controller). If you have a VAX, the filename will be slightly different. Sun Microsystems supplies this
file even with binary-only distributions.
HP-UX 11i Version 3: March 2012 − 3 − Hewlett-Packard Company 3