HEADS UP: tar -l is now (intentionally) broken.
Garance A Drosihn
drosih at rpi.edu
Tue Aug 3 10:58:01 PDT 2004
At 7:27 PM +1000 8/3/04, Johny Mattsson wrote:
>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.
Note that this is kind of pointless. What `-l' will do in
*future* releases will not help the user if they can not use
it right now. I.e., the current behavior is going to force
script-writers to use either --one-file-system or --check-links
right now, or their script will not work at all. They cannot
"adjust" their scripts to use -j at some unspecified point in
the future, if they can't use the option right now.
(btw, I do think this change is the right change to make,
given all the details of the `-l' option).
--
Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad at gilead.netel.rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer or gad at freebsd.org
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih at rpi.edu
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