Re: [Bug-tar] tar 1.13.93: DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT name

[Sergey Poznyakoff]

Hi Karl,

> I noticed tar 1.13.93 now has an environment variable for specifying the
> default output format.  That is very nice, but I wonder about the name,
> DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT.  After all, there are a lot of "archive"
> programs out there.

You are right. Notice, however, that the only use for this variable is
when configuring the package (e.g.
./configure DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT=posix ...). To change the output
format for already compiled program, TAR_OPTIONS should be used, e.g.:

TAR_OPTIONS='--format=posix'
 
> I am doing a similar thing for makeinfo in the next release; I just
> called the envvar TEXINFO_OUTPUT ("default" seemed redundant).  Maybe I
> should change to TEXINFO_OUTPUT_FORMAT, and yours could be
> TAR_OUTPUT_FORMAT?

Nice idea. Let's do so.

Regards,
Sergey