Re: [Bug-tar] Re: Verifying a tar File.

[Sergey Poznyakoff]

Joerg Schilling <address@hidden> wrote:

> There is also a general non TAR compliance with sparse files inside GNU tar
> archives.
> 
> I reported this missconception in 1994 (together with a decription on
> how a backwards compatible correction could be made) but no no avail until
> now...

It has been fixed with the introduction of support for PAX format.

> The size of sparse files in GNU tar is the size of the compressed file plus 
> the
> size of the sparse hole list, but GNU tar only uses the size of the 
> compressed file for the tar header.

The size of the sparse hole list can easily be deduced using the
available information.

> If GNU tar would use the right size in the archive header, then there was no
> need to correclty detect sparse files in order to list them.

There is no use to fix GNU tar format in this regard since doing so
would break backward compatibility. Flowed or not, it is the format used
for many years and there certainly are lots of already created archives
whose existence should be taken into account when taking a decision
about any "improvements" to the existing format.

Regards,
Sergey