HEADS UP: tar -l is now (intentionally) broken.
Johny Mattsson
lonewolf-freebsd at earthmagic.org
Tue Aug 3 02:27:57 PDT 2004
Tim Kientzle wrote:
> Since POSIX and GNU violently disagree about the
> meaning of "tar -l", and there seem to be strong
> adherents to both interpretations, I'm preparing to
> commit a patch that breaks "tar -l" for everyone:
>
> $ tar -cl foo
> Error: -l has different behaviors in different tars.
> For the GNU behavior, use --one-file-system instead.
> For the POSIX behavior, use --check-links instead.
Apologies if this is close to a bike-shed, but how about making the
above message a transitional message, and changing it to:
$ tar -cl foo
Error: -l has different behaviors in different tars.
For the GNU behavior, use --one-file-system instead.
For the POSIX behavior, use --check-links instead.
In future releases, POSIX behavior will be assumed, so
please adjust scripts and mentality as needed before then.
As someone said, adhering to standards is a Good Thing (tm), and I think
it's a worthwile aim. Making this error (and yes, I do agree that it
should be an error, not a warning) transitional, we pave the way for
becoming standards compliant, while still not destroying file systems
nilly-willy.
I won't claim to know what a reasonable timeframe would be, but perhaps
have this message in 5.3, and then change the behaviour for 5.4 or 5.5?
Cheers,
/Johny
--
Johny Mattsson - Making IT work ,-. ,-. ,-. There is no truth.
http://www.earthmagic.org _.' `-' `-' There is only perception.
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