Re: Tarring caveat!

[Jim Meyering]

Paul Eggert <address@hidden> wrote:
> Aristeidis Noutsos <address@hidden> writes:
>> Can you include some kind of a warning, just in the case where the
>> name of the archive happens to be an already existent file?
>
> That's such a common use of tar that the warning would cause more harm
> than it would cure.

One work-around is to ensure that you always use tar's --backup
option when running it from the command line, by using an alias
or a shell function.

Then if you ever make the mistake, you'll be able to find
the original in a backup file.  This has the minor limitation
(some would say `feature') that it forces you to use the POSIX
option syntax, e.g. `-cf', rather than just `cf'.