Re: [Bug-tar] recent GNU tar does not deal well with long paths and -o

[Sergey Poznyakoff]

Raphaël Poss <address@hidden> wrote:

> Problem:
> 
>    Automake (all versions) calls tar with option -o.
> 
>    GNU tar does not support long file names with -o in recent versions.
>    (test case below)

Option -o means V7 compatible archive. Such archives can store filenames
up to 99 characters long. Previous versions of GNU tar *incorrectly*
used GNU extensions even when old file format was explicitely
required. Current version of tar abandoned this erroneous behavior.
However, you did find a bug: namely, tar should not have stored
the file at all. I have already fixed this.

By the way, the use of options -o when creating the archive is
deprecated (see NEWS for details). I will contact Automake maintainers
on this issue a bit later.

Regards,
Sergey