README for GNU paxutils
See the end of file for copying conditions.

* Introduction

GNU paxutils aims to provide:

  1. tar implementation, replacing current GNU tar,
  2. cpio implementation, replacing current GNU cpio,
  3. pax implementation, conforming to POSIX standard.

All three implementations will be built around a common (presumably
shared) library.

See files HISTORY and TODO for the information about background of GNU
paxutils and its future plans.

* Interaction with GNU tar and cpio

Development of GNU paxutils evolves in sync with that of GNU tar
and cpio. New features of both projects are being moved to paxutils,
so that the project also serves as a code base repository for both tar
and cpio.

Each subdirectory in the repository that contains files required by
any of these projects, contains a file named DISTFILES that lists the
files to be exported from this subdirectory. Such file consists of a
list of filenames, each on a separate line. Empty lines and comments
(beginning with #) are allowed. Comments must occupy a separate line.

* Interaction with gnulib

File gnulib.modules contains a list of gnulib modules needed by
exportable paxutils files. The build system of both projects uses this
file to create a list of necessary gnulib modules.

A similar file, build-aux/paxlib.modules, contains a list of gnulib
modules needed by paxutils itself. It is used by build-aux/bootstrap
to bootstrap the package.

* Current status

Currently paxutils provides initial version of pax library, containing
internal buffering support. The 'paxtest' utility is provided for
testing the library.


* Copying

For any copyright year range specified as YYYY-ZZZZ in this package
the range specifies every year in that closed interval.

Copyright (C) 2005-2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

   Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
   of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
   copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
   thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.

   Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
   of this document, or of portions of it,
   under the above conditions, provided also that they
   carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.

Local Variables:
mode: outline
paragraph-separate: "[	]*$"
version-control: never
End: