FreeBSD tar errors on valid empty tar.gz

[Andrew Reilly]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 01:08:59 +0100
Kris Kennaway <kris at FreeBSD.org> wrote:

> Steven Hartland wrote:
> > A totally empty file is not valid try the following test:-
> >> touch empty
> >> tar cvzf test.tar.gz --files-from empty
> >> tar tvzf test.tar.gz tar: Unrecognized archive format: Inappropriate 
> >> file type or format
> >> tar --version
> >> bsdtar 1.2.53 - libarchive 1.2.53
> >> gtar tvzf test.tar.gz
> >> gtar --version
> >> tar (GNU tar) 1.15.1
> > 
> > Tested on: FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE-p9
> 
> OK, so it's already fixed?

Seems to work OK on my 7-STABLE system.

Interestingly, if I follow Steven Hartland's recipe (using
--files-from empty), I get a 45-byte .tar.gz file that gzcat's
to 10240 zero bytes, but if I leave the "z" off the tar commands, I
get an uncompressed file of 1024 zero bytes.  Should that happen?

In both cases, tar tvf{,z} doesn't whinge about unrecognized
formats.

Cheers,

-- 
Andrew