Re: gettext 0.18.1: tar: Option --owner=root is not supported

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> While building gettext 0.18.1 on Mac OS X 10.6.3 (working on updating MacPorts
> gettext to this version), I see this warning: 
> 
> [snip]
> [master ffb11a9] Import gettext-0.16
> [master f6303d4] Import gettext-0.16.1
> [master 2999543] Import gettext-0.17
> [master c105670] Import gettext-0.18
> [master 737d59b] Import gettext-0.18.1
> tar: Option --owner=root is not supported
> Usage:
>   List:    tar -tf <archive-filename>
>   Extract: tar -xf <archive-filename>
>   Create:  tar -cf <archive-filename> [filenames...]
>   Help:    tar --help
> Making all in man
> [snip]
> 
> The build continues on after that. Mac OS X's BSD tar doesn't seem to have
> the --owner flag. I wasn't sure if this is a problem for gettext. 

Thank you for reporting this so quickly. I have re-released gettext 0.18.1
now, fixing this bug:
  1) The script will also try 'gnutar' (which it should find, because
     MacOS X 10.6 has /usr/bin/gnutar).
  2) If it does not find a suitable 'tar' command, it omits the options
     "--owner=root --group=root".

> Actually, for MacPorts, we might not always be running as root, so I
> might just remove "--owner=root --group=root" from the tar commands.
> Do you think that would be a problem?  

If the user who invokes 'autopoint' is not root, the fact that the archive
has been created with "--owner=root --group=root" has no effect. But if
the user _is_ root, the "--owner=root --group=root" prevents a security
problem. Therefore I would leave the options activated.

Bruno