Suggestions for improving GNU tar.
+* <45BEC0DB.8040903@unix-beratung.de>
+
* Incorporate fixes from major distributions, e.g., Debian GNU/Linux.
-* Fix tar so that it can read and write POSIX.1-1990 tar archives.
+* Add support for restoring file time stamps to sub-second resolution,
+ if the file system supports this.
+
+* Add support for restoring the attributes of symbolic links, for
+ OSes like FreeBSD that have the lutimes and lchmod functions.
-* Add support for POSIX 1003.1-2001 tar archives
- (along with technical corrections to the standard since 2001).
+* --append should bail out if the two archives are of different types.
* Add support for a 'pax' command that conforms to POSIX 1003.1-2001.
This would unify paxutils with tar.
-* Remove command-line incompatibilities between GNU tar and UNIX tar
- as specified by UNIX98. The main problems are:
-
- l GNU tar doesn't cross filesystem boundaries.
- UNIX98 tar warns if all links cannot be resolved.
- (GNU tar has no similar option.)
-
- o GNU tar says output old format.
- UNIX98 tar says don't chown files after extracting
- (GNU tar uses "--no-same-owner" for this).
-
- Many people rely on GNU tar's "l" and "o" so we can't abruptly change
- GNU tar to be compatible with UNIX98 tar.
-
- However, "o" is relatively easy: we can extend GNU tar so that "o" is
- a synonym for --no-same-owner when extracting, keeping "o"'s current
- semantics when creating. This is a bit of a hack, but it shouldn't
- break things.
-
- "l" will be harder, since it's a clear incompatibility. Perhaps we
- could announce a phase-in period where "l" changes in semantics.
- However, the first step should be to support the UNIX98 semantics,
- using a long option, without changing the meaning of "l" for now. That
- will give people a migration strategy.
-
* Interoperate better with Joerg Schilling's star implementation.
* Add an option to remove files that compare successfully.
It would be useful to be able to use '--remove-files' with '--diff',
to remove all files that compare successfully, when verifying a backup.
+* Add tests for the new functonality.
+
+* Consider this:
+
+ From: Dennis Pund
+ Subject: TAR suggestion...
+ Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 18:26:36 -0500 (EST)
+
+ What I would like to do is:
+
+ foo my.tar.gz | tar -xzOf - | tar -cMf - -L 650000 - | bar
+
+ where 'foo' is a program that retrieves the archive and streams it
+ to stdout and bar is a program that streams the stdin to CDR.
+
+ (http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-utils/2002-05/msg00022.html)
+
+\f
* Copyright notice
- Copyright (C) 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+ Copyright (C) 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This file is part of GNU tar.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with tar; see the file COPYING. If not, write to
- the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
- Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
+ the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
+ Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
+
+\f
+Local variables:
+mode: outline
+paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
+end: