COPYTAPE(5)

NAME
copytape - copytape intermediate data file format

DESCRIPTION
copytape duplicates magtapes on single-tape systems by making an intermediate copy of the tape in a disk file. This disk file has a special format that preserves the block boundaries and tape marks of the original physical tape.

Each block is preceded by a header identifying what sort of block it is. In the case of data blocks, the length of the data is also given. Each header is on a separate text line, followed by a newline character.

CPTP:BLK nnnnnn
    data\n

    A data block is identified by the keyword BLK. The length of the block is given in a six-character numeric field. The field is zero-padded on the left if less than six characters are needed. The header is followed by a newline character. The original data follows. The data may have any characters in it, since copytape uses a read(2) to extract it. The data is followed by a newline, to make the file easy to view with an editor.

CPTP:MRK
    A tape mark was encountered in the original tape.

CPTP:EOT
    When two consecutive tape marks are encountered, copytape treats the second as a logical end-of-tape. On output, both MRK and EOT generate a physical tape mark. copytape stops processing after copying an EOT.

SEE ALSO
mtio(4)

BUGS
Some weird tapes may not use two consecutive tape marks as logical end-of-tape.