On Sat, Jan 04, 2003 at 04:55:37AM -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Saturday 04 January 2003 03:03, Frank Smith wrote:
> >--On Friday, January 03, 2003 22:18:18 -0500 "John R. Jackson" 
> <jrj AT purdue DOT edu> wrote:
> [...]
> >>> Just curious as why some of the defaults are the way they are.
> >>
> >> Ah, now that's a completely different question :-).  The answer,
> >> as is often the case, is "because it's always been that way". 
> >> Changing the default could be a *big* surprise to folks who
> >> upgrade.
> >
> >Like suddenly making the existance of a listed exclude file
> > required in 2.4.3 when it used to be optional?
> >
> >Frank
> 
> I just got curious, and commented that line out of the dumptype, 
> then removed the empty, made by touch file.  amcheck didn't notice.
    [[ snip ]]
> So its apparently only needed if you specify it.  Putting the line 
> back in gets me 36 errors because there are 36 entries in the 
> disklist that include that dumptype.
> 
> Since the error can be treated with a "touch" of the specified file, 
> or a comment in front of it in the dumptype, it doesn't seem like a 
> real problem.  Even when it was optional, I think I can recall it 
> was a problem for tar if it was passed as argument but didn't 
> exist.  So makeing it an ERROR to amcheck does seem to make a wee 
> bit of sense from this users viewpoint.  But I honestly can't say 
> when that change was made.

Some more data points from a 2.4.2 user.

The "exclude list" option is defined in the root-tar dumptype in both
2.4.2 and 2.4.3.  So no change there.  No surprises for anyone.

amcheck in my installation (2.4.2) does not complain if the exclude file
is missing.  It does in 2.4.3.  That could be a surprise to a user.

However gtar complains and aborts the backup if the exclude file
is missing.  That would be a real big surprise and disappointment!!

Seems to me, as Gene points out, this new check is a GOOD THING.
It may notify you of a backup that will fail.  Don't knock the
change, appreciate it.

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
 JG Computing
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