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

[Jim Meyering]

Sergey Poznyakoff wrote:
>> All of this to say that I hope there is some way to make
>> tar work the way it used to with those options,
>
> Up to version 1.22 tar would exit with a non-zero error code in such
> cases.  Do you propose to restore this behavior too?  In my opinion,
> it is inconsistent, because there were no real errors, so there should
> be no reason for a non-zero exit code either.  Besides, that would make
> it hard to discern from real error cases.
>
>> yet without
>> having to impose the -v option on all uses, which would likely
>> break some users of tar.
>
> Actually, tar don't impose the -v option, since merely using
> --warning=existing-file turns the warning on without having other
> effects.

Hi Sergey,

Thanks for adding --warning=existing-file.
With that, tar can do most (maybe all) of what I want.

Since with the vast majority of my manual uses of tar, I do not
intend to update an existing directory, having an option to make
it exit in that unusual/surprising case might be useful, but
the diagnostics from --warning=existing-file are probably enough.

> On the other hand, -v turns on the otherwise suppressed warnings (not
> only this particular one), because it is coherent with its main
> function, which is to increase verbosity.

What I meant is that if I would have to use -v to get
the warning messages I'd like, that would not work for me,
because -v changes tar's behavior in many other cases.
But now that you've added --warning=existing-file, it's not an issue.

Thanks again,

Jim