Re: [Bug-tar] mystic message: tar: bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.vmdk: File shrank by 7579713536 bytes

[Sergey Poznyakoff]

> This message is wrong because it doesn't say is my archive OK or not.

That depends a great deal upon what you mean by OK.  It is OK in the
sense it can be extracted.  The file in question was altered by a
third party and tar had to cope with that change.

> In console I cannot see comes it on stdout or stderr (I use default
> shell in Debian 7).

It goes to stderr, as all warning and error messages do.

> Actual result:
> 
> address@hidden:~/vmware$ tar czf bdeb60x64_vmware.tgz bdeb60x64
> tar: bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.vmdk: File shrank by 7579713536 bytes;
> padding with zeros
>
> Expected result:
> 
> tar: info: bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.vmdk: File shrank by 7579713536 bytes
> because 3926 Mb of file's tail contains only zeroes;

You seem to be confusing the cause and effect.  The fact that the "file's
tail" (as stored in the archive) contains zeros is caused by the fact
that it had shrunk by the listed number of bytes, and not vice-versa.

Regards,
Sergey