[vox-tech] tar question

[Peter Jay Salzman]

begin Shawn P. Neugebauer <spn@ucdavis.edu> 
> On Tuesday 04 June 2002 11:56 am, you wrote:
> > I think what you need is tar --delete --file test.tar b
> >
> > (i.e. put the list of files to delete at the end of the command line)
> 
> note:  "b" must *exactly* match the file you wish to remove.  this
> can often cause problems and confusion.  for example, if i create
> a tar file with:
>   tar cvf tarfile.tar ./somedirectory
> then if i want to remove the file somedirectory/b from the archive,
> i must use: 
>   tar f tarfile.tar --delete "./somedirectory/b"
> in other words, whatever tar displays (e.g., "./b") is what you must
> specify.
 
this was it.  matt...shawn, thanks!

  p@satan% tar cv test/ > test.tar
  test/
  test/a
  test/b
  p@satan% tar f test.tar --delete "test/b"
  p@satan% tar tf test.tar 
  test/
  test/a

it _sucks royally_ that tar seems to destroy the archive when you delete
an unknown file:

   p@satan% file test.tar 
   test.tar: GNU tar archive
   p@satan% tar f test.tar --delete "test/biteme"
   tar: test/biteme: Not found in archive
   tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
   p@satan% file test.tar 
   test.tar: data

bleah!

pete