>>> "Sergey" == Sergey Poznyakoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[...] >> Otherwise use `POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 tar'. (I'm assuming that >> POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 will coerce older tar versions into >> producing ustar format. Am I wrong, or is there another >> way?) Sergey> No, it will not. Previous versions of GNU tar were not Sergey> able to produce correct 'ustar' archives. Whatever Sergey> options you give to previous versions of GNU tar, the Sergey> produced archives will deviate from the standard. Ouch! Is that a `will always deviate' or a `can deviate in some conditions (like -o does)'? Sergey> Using -o does not help much, either: if the file list Sergey> to be archived contains long filenames or symbolic Sergey> links, tar will create GNU extension headers for them, Sergey> thus hurting the portability of the resulting archive. We don't have symbolic links. Only regular files and non-empty directories; furthermore ownership is not important. So as I sees it the question is: in this conditions, will old-GNU-tar-without-o deviate more from ustar than old-GNU-tar-with-o deviates from V7? If the answer is yes, then I guess we must keep using `o' with older GNU tar versions, and people with long filenames will have to get a recent tar version if they want portable tarballs. Otherwise it seems we simply do not need `o'. -- Alexandre Duret-Lutz
