[vox-tech] tar question

[Mark K. Kim]

It's a chance for someone to contribute to OSS... someone go for it.

-Mark "no-time" Kim

On Tue, 4 Jun 2002, Shawn P. Neugebauer wrote:

> 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.
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--
Mark K. Kim
http://www.cbreak.org/
PGP key available upon request.