listing just tar label

[Michael O'Donnell]

>Is it possible to list just the label of a 'tar' tape archive?
>I know I could just do a verbose list and parse out the first
>line, but I'd rather not scan the whole tape.

Try this:

    dd if=/yourTarArchiveFile bs=100 count=1 | strings

or, if you don't wanna see the chatty "dd" output:

  ( dd if=/yourTarArchiveFile bs=100 count=1 | strings ) 2>/dev/null

See also: /usr/include/tar.h

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