[Bug-tar] Bug with --compress?

[Michael D. Adams]

Is this a bug or are there known limits that "compress" has?  (Besides
being older and less used than --gzip or --bzip2.)

$ wget ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.22.90.tar.gz # get an example
file to compress
$ md5sum tar-1.22.90.tar.gz
499cceb9d2c2b02421ee08e2e61fb233  tar-1.22.90.tar.gz
$ tar --create --file TAR --compress tar-1.22.90.tar.gz
tar: Child returned status 2
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

Both tar-1.22.90 and tar-1.15.1 show this problem.  I haven't yet
identified what kind of files cause this.  It may be a file length
issue.

Michael D. Adams