Hi all,
please forgive if this topic was already discussed on this list in the
past, but I searched and couldnt find.
I would like to suggest a tar option similar to:
-h, --dereference
follow symlinks; archive and dump the files they point to
but for extracting archives. Such an option would be really helpful
especially on systems where no symlinks work since usually you dont have
control over the tar file you get (f.e. a source tarball of a project),
so you would have to repack the tarball on another system with -h in
order to properly get all files in place when extracting on the
non-symlink-aware system.
Of course its clear that such can only work with files which are
included in this same tarball but in other folders; symlinks which point
outside the tarball should be ignored then.
I really wonder that such an option didnt yet make it into tar although
while searching I found a couple of hits where others aked for same.
Günter.
