Re: [Bug-tar] Problem

[Joerg Schilling]

"Donald Woeltje" <address@hidden> wrote:

> We have a problem with tar. Because of something very specific we need to do 
> with tar, there is a limitation in tar that is causing us serious heartache. 
> Would it be possible to get a copy of the source code for tar, so that maybe 
> we can have the manufacturer of our proprietary Unix-based OS (called 
> "SecureOS") compile a version of tar for us that eliminates this problem?
>  
> The problem is that tar seems to be hardcoded for a maximum number of 
> characters that can be used for a filename. We need that maximum adjusted to 
> a limit of 120 characters. I don't know what the limit is, but when we try to 
> tar up using a file name that long, tar generates an error message telling us 
> that the filename is to long.

The historical tar archive format has a path name length limitation
of 100 chars. You cannot enhance this without breaking the format.

The POSIX.1-1988 version of tar has a path name length limitation
between 100 and 255 chars (there must be a '/' at a place
that allows to split the name into a 155 char prefix and
a 100 char suffix).

The POSIX.1-2001 version of tar no longer has a path name length limitation.


If you like to create tar archives that are standard compliant by default,
I recommend you to use star

ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/star/alpha/

star by default creates POSIX.a-1988 compliant archives and may be told
to create POSIX.1-2001 archives.


GNU tar by default uses a private method to archive long path names that
is not compatible to standard tar implementations.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:address@hidden (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
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