[vox-tech] tar question

[Shawn P. Neugebauer]

On Tuesday 04 June 2002 02:23 pm, you wrote:
> On Tuesday 04 June 2002 12:54 pm, you wrote:
> [snip]
>
> > 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
>
> it also deletes the archive if you don't list a file (or files).  yes, this
> is weird and were it not consistent i would call it a bug, but it's
> probably some kind of "feature."

well, this *is* a bug!  i noticed it when testing stuff to answer pete's
question, but ignored it.  then we pete mentioned it again, i started
poking around.  can't find any mention of it anywhere.  however, the
tar man/info page at gnu.org says
  "if you list no member names, nothing will be deleted"
and this is clearly violated.  as pete noticed, it also destroys the
archive if a member name is not actually a member.

i reported this to bugzilla.redhat.com for version 7.1 and got a
quick reply that "it works in 7.3."  however, i just tested it with 7.3
and it's broken there, too; i added a comment to this.

FYI, this is tar-1.13.19-4 on RH 7.1 and tar-1.13.25-4 on RH 7.3.

shawn.