>>> "Stepan" == Stepan Kasal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Stepan> One question comes to mind: why couldn't be the option Stepan> filename-length-max=99 default if tar-v7 is used? Because tar-v7 is a misnomer for the historical practice, which is to use the first working command among `tar chof', `tar chf', and `tar cf'. This selection is done during `make dist' by missing. So with recent GNU tar, what is expected to happen is that `tar chof' will fail on long filenames, but them missing will run `tar chf' which will create a GNU tar archive. With older GNU tar, `tar chof' will use GNU extensions for long filenames directly. With non-GNU tar, rerunning `tar chf' will likely produce a ustar tarball. I'm not really fond of the way all this works, but this used to allow people to build tarball with long filenames even before the tar-* option were introduced. Hence filename-length-max=99 was suggested as an option only for those who care. -- Alexandre Duret-Lutz
