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-rw-r--r--doc/guix.texi8
1 files changed, 5 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/doc/guix.texi b/doc/guix.texi
index 46ed451d6b..bd782cab03 100644
--- a/doc/guix.texi
+++ b/doc/guix.texi
@@ -2403,10 +2403,12 @@ profile as well as all of their dependencies are transferred (due to
target machine. The @code{--missing} option can help figure out which
items are missing from the target store.
-Archives are stored in the ``Nix archive'' or ``Nar'' format, which is
-comparable in spirit to `tar', but with a few noteworthy differences
+@cindex nar, archive format
+@cindex normalized archive (nar)
+Archives are stored in the ``normalized archive'' or ``nar'' format, which is
+comparable in spirit to `tar', but with differences
that make it more appropriate for our purposes. First, rather than
-recording all Unix metadata for each file, the Nar format only mentions
+recording all Unix metadata for each file, the nar format only mentions
the file type (regular, directory, or symbolic link); Unix permissions
and owner/group are dismissed. Second, the order in which directory
entries are stored always follows the order of file names according to