Re: [Bug-tar] tar-1.13.25: unable to restore hardlink

[Paul Eggert]

Joerg Schilling <address@hidden> writes:

> If GNU tar by default skips leading '/' characters it should do the same
> with hard link names. This is what star does since 1995.

Yes, GNU tar does that; I just checked with tar 1.14.

$ cd /tmp
$ touch a
$ ln a b
$ tar -Pcf tar /tmp/a /tmp/b
$ tar tvf tar
-rw-r--r-- eggert/eggert     0 2004-10-06 12:24:34 /tmp/a
hrw-r--r-- eggert/eggert     0 2004-10-06 12:24:34 /tmp/b link to /tmp/a
$ mkdir d
$ cd d
$ tar xvf ../tar
/tmp/a
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
/tmp/b
tar: Removing leading `/' from hard link targets
$ ls -li tmp
total 0
66600 -rw-r--r--  2 eggert eggert 0 2004-10-06 12:24 a
66600 -rw-r--r--  2 eggert eggert 0 2004-10-06 12:24 b


> Note that is is most likely wrong to do the same with symlinks.

Correct.  Tar doesn't do it for symlinks.  For example:

$ cd /tmp
$ touch a
$ ln -s /tmp/a b
$ tar -Pcf tar /tmp/a /tmp/b
$ tar tvf tar
-rw-r--r-- eggert/eggert     0 2004-10-06 12:27:53 /tmp/a
lrwxrwxrwx eggert/eggert     0 2004-10-06 12:27:58 /tmp/b -> /tmp/a
$ mkdir d
$ cd d
$ tar xvf ../tar
/tmp/a
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
/tmp/b
$ ls -li tmp
total 0
66599 -rw-r--r--  1 eggert eggert 0 2004-10-06 12:27 a
66600 lrwxrwxrwx  1 eggert eggert 6 2004-10-06 12:28 b -> /tmp/a