Dear Zack, Karl,
Thank you for comment. Indeed, if the make variable @TAR@ is
substituted by the long command like
"tar --format=ustar chf - $(tardir)",
it would be much different for what the users expect for its name.
A name with clear distinction is essential, if the macro is
exposed to public.
Regards,
mpsuzuki
On 2025/11/24 6:45, Zack Weinberg wrote:
On Sun, Nov 23, 2025, at 4:31 PM, Karl Berry wrote:
I'm interested in whether publishing _AM_PROG_TAR in tar.m4
Well, I agree with Bob that _AM_PROG_TAR is rather idiosyncratic, what
with defining commands that output the tar file to stdout. But
nevertheless, I take your point that copying all the checks is rather
annoying. Users can set the TAR envvar (and/or AMTAR, maybe) to get a
different program, I believe.
I wouldn't be opposed to Autoconf shipping an AC_PROG_TAR, but it would
need to confine itself to like "find a tar program that can generate
POSIX-compliant tar archives and set @TAR@ to its name + any options
required to get the compliant output format", leaving operation mode,
source, destination and whatnot to the user.
zw
