Re: [Bug-tar] what decide the tar pack file order?

[Tim Kientzle]

dapeng ni wrote:
> But whatever in ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10, tar always pack file in
> unpredictable order, such as:

tar asks the system for the list of files in
each directory; the order depends on many things,
including the file system implementation and sometimes
the precise history of file creations and deletions in
that directory.  See opendir(), readdir(), closedir()
documentation.

> I even copy tar command file from 6.04 to replace current one, it is
> no help. It seems tar is dependent on other program or configuration
> to decide the order of package.  How can I set it up?

If you really need to control the order, you can use some other
program to create the list of files and use tar's -T option to
use that list instead of allowing tar to ask the system:

  find . | sort | tar -czvf out.tgz -T -

You'll probably need the --no-recursion option to tar as well.

Cheers,

Tim Kientzle