tar: Tape Files

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1 9.6.2 Tape Files
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1      _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_
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1    To give the archive a name which will be recorded in it, use the
1 '--label=VOLUME-LABEL' ('-V VOLUME-LABEL') option.  This will write a
1 special block identifying VOLUME-LABEL as the name of the archive to the
1 front of the archive which will be displayed when the archive is listed
1 with '--list'.  If you are creating a multi-volume archive with
1 '--multi-volume' (⇒Using Multiple Tapes), then the volume label
1 will have 'Volume NNN' appended to the name you give, where NNN is the
1 number of the volume of the archive.  If you use the
1 '--label=VOLUME-LABEL' option when reading an archive, it checks to make
1 sure the label on the tape matches the one you gave.  ⇒label.
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1    When 'tar' writes an archive to tape, it creates a single tape file.
1 If multiple archives are written to the same tape, one after the other,
1 they each get written as separate tape files.  When extracting, it is
1 necessary to position the tape at the right place before running 'tar'.
1 To do this, use the 'mt' command.  For more information on the 'mt'
1 command and on the organization of tapes into a sequence of tape files,
1 see ⇒mt.
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1    People seem to often do:
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1      --label="SOME-PREFIX `date +SOME-FORMAT`"
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1    or such, for pushing a common date in all volumes or an archive set.
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