Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference Manual (G06.25+, H06.03+)

User Commands (p - r) pax(1)
DIAGNOSTICS
A diagnostic message is written to the standard error file and a nonzero exit value is returned (but
processing continues) when pax cannot create a file or a link when reading an archive or when
pax cannot preserve the user ID, group ID, or file mode bits when the -p flag is specified.
If the extraction of a file from an archive is prematurely terminated by a signal or error, pax
might have only partially extracted the file or, if the -n flag was not specified, might have
extracted a file that has the same name as that specified by the user but that is not the file the user
wanted. In addition, the file modes of extracted directories might have incorrect modification
and access times.
When appropriate privileges are required to set one of the access mode bits and if the user restor-
ing the files from the archive does not have the appropriate privileges, the mode bits for which
the user does not have privileges are ignored.
EXIT VALUES
The following exit values are returned by pax:
0Allfiles were processed successfully.
> 0 An error occurred.
NOTES
1. The pax command can fail with the error message Name too long when an attempt is
made to archive a file with a filename longer than 100 characters. This message is
displayed when the default USTAR format is used to create an archive. The command
fails because the default USTAR format does not support filenames longer than 100 char-
acters, in conformance with the 1990 edition of the POSIX Standard IEEE 1003.1. A
practical workaround is to use the pax command with the -x cpio flag, because the cpio
archive format supports filenames longer than 100 characters.
2. Because /G and /E both appear in your local root directory, you should be very careful
when using OSS shell commands on or from the root directory. OSS shell commands
that perform recursive actions make no distinction between Guardian and OSS files or
between local and remote files. You can use the -W NOG and -W NOE flags or the
UTILSGE environment variable to exclude objects in the Guardian file system or
objects accessible through the Expand product.
3. The pax utility cannot append a file to an unlabeled tape. Each successive write to such
a tape begins at the beginning of the tape.
For example, if you issue the following commands from the shell:
find xlog -print | pax -wv -f /G/TAPE -W norewind
find xlog.bsm -print | pax -wv -f /G/TAPE -W norewind
Then physically unload the tape, reload the tape, and enter:
pax -rv -f /G/TAPE -W norewind
You will see that the tape contains only the last file archived by the two commands
above.
To archive more than one file on an unlabeled tape, you must enter all of the commands
within the same subshell. For example:
( find xlog -print; find xlog.bsm -print ) | pax -wv -f /G/tape
The above command causes all the files printed by both the find commands to be put on
tape because the find commands are executed in a subshell.
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