tar only dirctories

[gotchausa]

Is it possible to use 'tar' to only create an archive with directories - no files belonging to these dirs.? I basically only want to save the dir. structure without the files.

 

[klasan]

Try this script:

find /dir -type d > dir_list.txt
tar -cpf dir.tar -L dir_list.txt

 

[gotchausa]

The -L option is not available with the tar version that I have (Solaris 8). What does the option do?

 

[klasan]

Sorry! -L is in AIX and read a file that contain a list of what to save with tar.
Try this on Solaris:

# find /dir -type f > file_list.txt
# tar -cvpfX dir.tar file_list.txt /dir

The X option of the tar read a file_list.txt and exclude the contents.

 

[gotchausa]

I tried your suggestion and it seemed to work for exclude list with a few entries. However, when I do something like:

find / -type f > file_list.txt
tar cvfpX dir.tar file_list /

The exclude file is completely ignored!! The file has about 52,000 entries. Is there a max no. of exclude entries that tar can deal with?

 

[klasan]

You are right. The problem is that Solaris (I don't know why) append a / when you use tar on the root directory.
ex. tar -cvf /tmp/root.tar /
a //var
a //var/spool
ecc.

try to use relative path:
cd /
find . -type f > file_list.txt
tar -cvfpX /dir_with_free_space/dir.tar file_list.txt -C / .

52000 entries isn't a problem, i tried with 170000 entries.
But....if you have to save root directory tree you have to exclude also special files and link, so add this find in your script:
find . -type b >> file_list.txt
find . -type c >> file_list.txt
find . -type D >> file_list.txt
find . -type l >> file_list.txt
find . -type p >> file_list.txt
find . -type s >> file_list.txt

 

[toolkit]

An alternative is to use cpio like:
To store:

find . -type d | cpio -o > /tmp/dirs

To create:

cd /tmp
cpio -id < dirs

Might not be as portable. Cheers, Neil

 

[gotchausa]

Many thanks!