On Tuesday 04 June 2002 02:23 pm, you wrote: > On Tuesday 04 June 2002 12:54 pm, you wrote: > [snip] > > > it _sucks royally_ that tar seems to destroy the archive when you delete > > an unknown file: > > > > p@satan% file test.tar > > test.tar: GNU tar archive > > p@satan% tar f test.tar --delete "test/biteme" > > tar: test/biteme: Not found in archive > > tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors > > p@satan% file test.tar > > test.tar: data > > it also deletes the archive if you don't list a file (or files). yes, this > is weird and were it not consistent i would call it a bug, but it's > probably some kind of "feature."
well, this *is* a bug! i noticed it when testing stuff to answer pete's question, but ignored it. then we pete mentioned it again, i started poking around. can't find any mention of it anywhere. however, the tar man/info page at gnu.org says "if you list no member names, nothing will be deleted" and this is clearly violated. as pete noticed, it also destroys the archive if a member name is not actually a member. i reported this to bugzilla.redhat.com for version 7.1 and got a quick reply that "it works in 7.3." however, i just tested it with 7.3 and it's broken there, too; i added a comment to this. FYI, this is tar-1.13.19-4 on RH 7.1 and tar-1.13.25-4 on RH 7.3. shawn. _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
