Have you considered that a system may have multiple viable tar programs and that a user may prefer to use a different one than Automake chooses to use? Automake's criteria is different than a normal users and the program selected might not even be include 'tar' as part of its name.
Bob On Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 12:54 AM mpsuzuki <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear experts, > > I'm interested in whether publishing _AM_PROG_TAR in tar.m4 for general > use is a considerable idea, or bad idea. > In my understanding, _AM_PROG_TAR is designed to help "make dist" of > Automake target, and it is not for general use. > There are some source packages whose top-level makefile is not managed by > autoconf/automake and write their own "make dist" recipes. > One example is FreeType. Currently it is hardcoding "tar --format=ustar > -chf -", like: > > > https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/freetype/freetype/-/blob/master/builds/toplevel.mk?ref_type=heads > > I hope its portability can be improved by something like _AM_PROG_TAR. > It is not so difficult to reimplenetation of _AM_PROG_TAR in each software > project, > but if automake can consider publishising _AM_PROG_TAR, the maintenance > would be easier. > > Regards, > mpsuzuki > > > >
