Re: : [Bug-tar] new feature suggestion

[Martin Simmons]

>>>>> On Tue, 11 May 2004 21:56:39 +0100, Markus Kuhn <address@hidden> said:

  Markus> Would it be possible to add to GNU tar a new option

  Markus>   --max-cwd-additions=1

  Markus> that aborts the extraction of an archive with an error message if this
  Markus> extraction would create more than 1 file or subdirectory in the 
current
  Markus> working directory (and may therefore create a mess that is difficult 
to
  Markus> clean up)?

  Markus> Reason: Each tar archive I get, I first have to check manually, 
whether
  Markus> all files will already be unpacked under one single subdirectory in 
the
  Markus> archive, or whether I have to first create a new subdirectory in which
  Markus> to unpack the archive, to ensure that I can easily remove the just
  Markus> unpacked files again with rm -rf. The above option would allow me to
  Markus> easily make sure that tar warns me whenever I call it outside a 
separate
  Markus> subdirectory created specifically for this extraction, if it is about 
to
  Markus> litter a thousand files in the current working directory.

  Markus> Just an idea ...

I have that hassle too, so now I always make a fresh directory just in case.

If tar were to provide an option for this, I would want it to prevent a mess
in any directory, not just cwd.  I'd be happy with a really restrictive option
--require-one-new-directory, which would make tar abort if:

a) it tries to create any files in cwd
b) it tries to create more than one subdirectory in cwd
c) it tries to create anything in any other existing subdirectory of cwd

The last case covers the situation where the archive consists of many files in
some commonly named directory like bin or src.

__Martin