[Bug-tar] restoring at absolute rather than relative file locations

[Vadim Biktashev]

When I list contents of the archive with "tar tvf foo.tar (names of the files)", 
I see all file names starting not with '/', i.e. as relative file locations.
The archive has been moved from where it was created to a completely different 
file system. There I am trying to extract from it some selected files, using 
"tar xvf foo.tar (names of the files)". I observe that tar creates the files not 
in places relative to the current working directory, but at the absolute 
pathnames from which they have been archived - or, rather, attempts to do that 
as those directories are not accessible for writing.

I am using:

1144 17:42:46 tmp$ tar --version
tar (GNU tar) 1.14
Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
You may redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public License;
see the file named COPYING for details.
Written by John Gilmore and Jay Fenlason.
1145 17:42:49 tmp$


under operating system:

1145 17:42:49 tmp$ uname -a
Linux pc039038.maths.liv.ac.uk 2.6.12-1.1381_FC3 #1 Fri Oct 21 03:46:55 EDT 2005 
i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
1146 17:43:32 tmp$

(I was told by my sysadm it is Fedora Red Hat )

The tar file was create by command

/usr/bin/tar cf - (relative sudirectory name)

on a Sun computer
556 17:44:46 home$ uname -a
SunOS volkenstein.maths.liv.ac.uk 5.8 Generic_117350-25 sun4u sparc 
SUNW,Ultra-5_10
557 17:45:21 home$

The "tar" there does not report its version number or anything; apparently it is 
 the standard one for SunOS 5.8

I realize that the trouble may be due to peculiarities of the Sun tar; however, 
it does not seem right that I cannot force it to create files at relative 
pathname locations, barring "force majeure" measures like creating fake 
directories in place of real ones just for the sake of recovering a few files...




--
Vadim Biktashev, Ph.D.
Mathematical Sciences, University of Liverpool
address@hidden   http://www.maths.liv.ac.uk/~vadim/
phone +44 151 794 4004   fax +44 151 794 4061