Extracting multiple files would be cool

[tpowa]

Hi Benjamin,
One thing I stumbled, 3cpio -x does not support more than one file at a time.
Would be cool not to span: for i loops for extracting multiple files.
Best regards
tpowa

[bdrung]

I did not add that feature, because I had a different idea in mind: -x FILE [MEMBER] where FILE is the cpio file and MEMBER the file inside the cpio. Then only this member would be extracted.

Any idea how to implement both of them?

[tpowa]

Maybe if [MEMBER] is not an existing file treat it as extract pattern?

[bdrung]

Another idea: Use a positional argument for the file: 3cpio -x -f FILE [-f FILE2] [-f FILE3...] [MEMBER].

[bdrung]

Is this feature request still wanted? I checked https://gitlab.archlinux.org/tpowa/archboot and it does not use a tight for loop for 3cpio -x.

[tpowa]

https://gitlab.archlinux.org/tpowa/archboot/-/blob/master/usr/lib/archboot/cpio/init.sh#L193
Well it works for me this way. You can close this if no other demand is there for it. I don't know if ubuntu or fedora needs such a feature.

[bdrung]

I am not aware of any other use case that want to extract multiple cpio files in one go.

Would 3cpio -x [-f] FILE [-f FILE2] [-f FILE3...] [MEMBER...] (e.g. 3cpio -x -f cpio1 -f cpio2 -f cpio3) make your code simpler?

[tpowa]

Yes then I can pass it as array to it.