Re: [Bug-tar] tar with -k option no longer warns when not overwriting files

[Jim Meyering]

Sergey Poznyakoff wrote:

> Paul Eggert <address@hidden> ha escrit:
>
>> is it wise
>> to introduce a new level of verbosity for this?  It'd

I would prefer a new option, because...

>> be simpler if ordinary -v enabled this new warning,
>> as it does the other warnings, and I'm wondering why
>> the simpler route wasn't taken.
>
> That was what I thought of initially.  But then, I introduced an
> extra level of verbosity to keep `tar -xv' output consistent
> with what it is now.  I have no strong feelings one way or
> the other, so if you think ordinary -v should suffice, it's
> quite OK with me.

I've been setting TAR_OPTIONS='--keep-old-files --no-same-permissions'
in my environment for some time, and coincidentally, just a couple days
ago, was taken by surprise when unpacking a new tarball with an
already-existing directory.  Tar exited successfully with no
diagnostics, yet did absolutely nothing.

Obviously, when tar exited successfully, I thought all was well
and began reviewing the "new" code.  It took a while to realize
that I was wasting my time reviewing an old version.

All of this to say that I hope there is some way to make
tar work the way it used to with those options, yet without
having to impose the -v option on all uses, which would likely
break some users of tar.