cpio question

Hi,
How does the -E filename work with cpio? By example, I had an archive
with about 5500 files in it of which I only needed three hundred. I am
thinking that the command:

cpio -iv -E filename /dev/st0

or similiar would extract only the files listed in 'filename'. Is this
the correct assumption? I have tried this and it did nothing. I am
guessing that my 'filename' is in an incorrect format. Last try it
looked like this:

/dir/filename
/dir/dirfilename
etc...

Any pointers someone can offer me. I am pretty sure it will be
something obvious that I am overlooking. Thanks.

Robert

Your pattern file format is fine. It uses the shell globbing format,
giving a complete file path per line (terminated with newline) should
work.

You might want to use the '-d' flag to make it create any missing
parent directories though, your example would fail when the current
directory does not have a '/dir/' directory.

thanks very much