using tar (GNU tar) 1.20, 1.22, or recent git checkout, on ubuntu 9.04/x86_64:
$ ../src/tar --version tar (GNU tar) 1.22.90 Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Written by John Gilmore and Jay Fenlason. $ mkdir a $ mkdir b $ touch b/c $ ../src/tar cfv a --remove-files b ../src/tar: a: Cannot open: Is a directory ../src/tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now $ ls b c $ ../src/tar cfvz a --remove-files b ../src/tar: a: Cannot open: Is a directory ../src/tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now b/ b/c ../src/tar: Child returned status 2 ../src/tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors $ ls b ls: cannot access b: No such file or directory $ ls a/ -- 3b
