small question about tape-based dumps

[Tim Judd]

On 10/17/09, Jerry McAllister <jerrymc at msu.edu> wrote:
<snip>

> You do not need to. dump alrady writes that when it finishes each time.
> If you to that, you will get a second one at that location.
>
> You do not need to do the rewind and mt fsf between each dump.  I just
> do it to make it very clear to myself in my scripts what I am expecting
> and that I am doing it right.
>
> ////jerry

<snip>

If dump is the tool for tapes, and tar is named after tape archives...

Do both of these utilities write the *proper* EOF to whatever medium
it's writing to?

I bring this up, because dump can also write to a file on a formatted
FS.  Does the file end with this same EOF?  What does tar do?

Why have a mt weof function if it's useless?  I'm loosing the logic in
this one, trying to make sure things work as they should.  I admit
tapes on bsd are so foreign to me, I might as well be speaking
$another-language.


Please help.