Re: [aclug-L] loopback Q.

[Nate Bargmann <ka0rny@xxxxxxxxxx>]

John Goerzen wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Nov 11, 1998 at 11:55:04PM -0600, Brian J. Chapman wrote:
> 
> > okay, this might be a dumb question, but is it possible to loopback mount
> > a TAR file?
> 
> Nope.  A tar file is not a filesystem (just as a zip file isn't either), so
> it cannot be mounted as one.  One of the big hindrances to this is that tar
> files do not contain any sort of central directory structure, which could
> make it necessary to read through the entire archive each time an "ls" is
> issued.  (Imagine doing that with a 70 MB file.)  The reason for this dates
> back to the creation of tar; it was originally intended for doing backups to
> tape (Tape ARchive).

John is correct.

The Midnight Commander file manager does implement its own virtual file
system that does allow looking at a .tar, .tar.gz, or .tgz (also .Z and
.zip) file as though it were a directory.  It does decompress the file
and stores it temporarily until you move back out of it and close it. 
If the file contains directories, you can navigate the directory
structure and view files and also copy files out of the archive.  In
fact I use it more often than 'tar xvfz tarballname.tgz' at the $ prompt
to extract source files or any tarball for that matter.  

To enter the file simply move the highlight bar down to the tar file of
interest and press <Enter> or double click with your left mouse button. 
I have looked at and extracted files up to 47 MB (Star Office 4.0)
although doing so took several minutes to extract the contents into the
temp file on my 486/100.

In short I find mc to be very stable and much faster than any icon based
file manager for X I've tried.  I run it in an xterm window or from the
console.  This is what I love about Linux, the endless variety of tools
available to perform a job.

- Nate >>

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