(tar.info.gz) interactive

 
 3.10 Asking for Confirmation During Operations
 ==============================================
 
 Typically, `tar' carries out a command without stopping for further
 instructions.  In some situations however, you may want to exclude some
 files and archive members from the operation (for instance if disk or
 storage space is tight).  You can do this by excluding certain files
 automatically ( Choosing), or by performing an operation
 interactively, using the `--interactive' (`-w') option.  `tar' also
 accepts `--confirmation' for this option.
 
    When the `--interactive' (`-w') option is specified, before reading,
 writing, or deleting files, `tar' first prints a message for each such
 file, telling what operation it intends to take, then asks for
 confirmation on the terminal.  The actions which require confirmation
 include adding a file to the archive, extracting a file from the
 archive, deleting a file from the archive, and deleting a file from
 disk.  To confirm the action, you must type a line of input beginning
 with `y'.  If your input line begins with anything other than `y',
 `tar' skips that file.
 
    If `tar' is reading the archive from the standard input, `tar' opens
 the file `/dev/tty' to support the interactive communications.
 
    Verbose output is normally sent to standard output, separate from
 other error messages.  However, if the archive is produced directly on
 standard output, then verbose output is mixed with errors on `stderr'.
 Producing the archive on standard output may be used as a way to avoid
 using disk space, when the archive is soon to be consumed by another
 process reading it, say.  Some people felt the need of producing an
 archive on stdout, still willing to segregate between verbose output
 and error output.  A possible approach would be using a named pipe to
 receive the archive, and having the consumer process to read from that
 named pipe.  This has the advantage of letting standard output free to
 receive verbose output, all separate from errors.
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