(tar.info.gz) Sparse Formats

 
 Storing Sparse Files
 ====================
 
 The notion of sparse file, and the ways of handling it from the point of
 view of GNU 'tar' user have been described in detail in  sparse.
 This chapter describes the internal format GNU 'tar' uses to store such
 files.
 
    The support for sparse files in GNU 'tar' has a long history.  The
 earliest version featuring this support that I was able to find was
 1.09, released in November, 1990.  The format introduced back then is
 called "old GNU" sparse format and in spite of the fact that its design
 contained many flaws, it was the only format GNU 'tar' supported until
 version 1.14 (May, 2004), which introduced initial support for sparse
 archives in PAX archives ( posix).  This format was not free from
 design flaws, either and it was subsequently improved in versions 1.15.2
 (November, 2005) and 1.15.92 (June, 2006).
 
    In addition to GNU sparse format, GNU 'tar' is able to read and
 extract sparse files archived by 'star'.
 
    The following subsections describe each format in detail.
(tar.info.gz) Sparse Formats

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