Re: [Bug-tar] The empty tar file

[Charles Swiger]

Hi--

On Oct 17, 2013, at 2:10 AM, address@hidden wrote:
> Hi GNU Team,

Well, this is a mailing list for GNU tar, but there are a number of non-GNU 
folks lurking around here.  :-)

> This is regarding the creation of tar archive from files dropped to unix 
> through a windows filer.
>  
> Files like ‘call for complaint.txt’ are being considered as three different 
> arguments for the tar command.

Yes, that's standard Unix shell behavior.
Use backslashes or quotes to surround filenames containing spaces:

tar cf nofile.tar call\ for\ complaint.txt     [ ...or... ]
tar cf nofile.tar 'call for complaint.txt'

> <image002.jpg>
>  
> The archive Nofile.tar.Z is being created with 164 bytes although it doesnot 
> contain any files.
>  
> Is there any way to stop the tar command from generating the .tar archive if 
> the files don’t exist?

No; it's not considered an error to create a tar file which archived zero files.

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck