david wrote:

...

here are the keys you seek: tar --help | less info tar

Exactly. Rogier Maas writes:

Isn't anybody aware of the tar manpages? `man tar' gives you everything you need.

No, wrong, false... David was right, and you even quote him! Wow... `man tar' gives you obsolete information on Red Hat (so far that I heard), and for systems installing the `man' page coming from the `tar' distribution, this `man page' essentially repeats the information from `tar --help'. Yet, this is only a reminder, and hardly a substitute for the `tar' manual, which you might interactively browse with the `info tar' command. For most programs providing output for `PROGRAM --help', it is often nothing more than a reminder, and rarely not the proper way to learn how to use that program. Even when there is a `man' page, if there is an accompanying Texinfo documentation (available through `info', or as a nicely printable manual), the `man' page should better be disregarded, as it is usually inferior documentation. P.S. - Hmph... I probably feel in a strange mood, today. :-) -- François Pinard http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/