NEW TAR

[Harti Brandt]

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004, Andrey Chernov wrote:

AC>On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 09:30:39AM +0200, Harti Brandt wrote:
AC>> (hole data at the end) you get a problem when extracting. The way I see 
AC>> would be to put the hole data in-line. This is also not without problems. 
AC>
AC>I too. Just store '\0' and then its count. This solution needs some 
AC>"backslashing"-like detection to prevent archive file grow bigger on short 
AC>sequences. 
AC>
AC>But because nobody will understand that format, better stick with GNU one, 
AC>regardless of its inefficiency. People using -S will have some slowdown, 
AC>but they know what they do.

GNU tar is unmaintained for several years now and I see no reason to 
restrict development because of an unmaintained ancient program. If there 
is a better format we should implement it (well, Tim I suppose :-) GNU's 
format as an option. If you prepare an archieve that should be readable by 
everyone you cannot use sparse format anyway.

harti