# Process this file with autom4te to create testsuite. -*- Autotest -*-
# Test suite for GNU tar.
-# Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+# Copyright (C) 2006, 2007, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
-# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
+# the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
# any later version.
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# Using tar 1.15.x the following equivalent command sets:
#
-# 1. tar cf archive file1 file2
+# 1. tar cf archive file1 file2
# and
# 2. tar cfT archive /dev/null
# tar rf archive file1
# tar rt archive file2
#
-# produced different archives (GNU format is assumed). Namely, in the
-# second case the mode field of all members, except the first, was truncated
-# to lower 3 octets (& 0777).
+# produced different archives (GNU format is assumed). It was reported
+# by TAMUKI Shoichi on 2006-07-21 [1].
+#
+# The bug was due to tar being unable to discern between GNU and OLDGNU
+# formats and always assuming the latter. The main difference between
+# the two is that OLDGNU preserves all bits in the mode field, whereas
+# GNU format keeps only the lower 9 ones (mode & 0777).
+#
+# This was fixed on 2006-07-24 (commit f4e4adea80a) by making tar truncate
+# the mode field even in OLDGNU format. Obviously, the fix broke the
+# format backward compatibility, but it went unnoticed until 2009-10-03
+# (after all, the OLDGNU format is not in much use nowadays), when
+# Igor Zhbanov reported it [2].
+#
+# The final fix was applied on 2009-10-04.
#
# References:
-# <200607210526.AA03440@tamuki.linet.gr.jp>
-# http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-tar/2006-07/msg00029.html
+# [1] <200607210526.AA03440@tamuki.linet.gr.jp>
+# http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-tar/2006-07/msg00029.html
+# [2] <f44001920910020335v4cadfesf54f6593d5124814@mail.gmail.com>
+# http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-tar/2009-10/msg00006.html
# The test case below verifies that the equivalent create and append commands
# produce binary equivalent archives for all formats.
MTIME="--mtime=@0"
# For PAX archives, we need to make sure extended header names are
-# reproducible and that their contents won't change with time
+# reproducible and that their contents won't change with time
if test $[]TEST_TAR_FORMAT = posix; then
TAR_OPTIONS="$TAR_OPTIONS --pax-option=exthdr.name=%d/PaxHeaders/%f,delete=mtime,delete=atime,delete=ctime"
fi