Re: [Bug-tar] Regarding untaring tar files containing symlinks

[Linda A. Walsh]

Amit Kapila wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 8:10 PM, Joerg Schilling 
> <address@hidden 
> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
> > Amit Kapila <address@hidden 
> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 6:42 PM, Joerg Schilling <
> > > address@hidden 
> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
> > > > It will create copies as Win-DOS does not support symlnks.
----
Maybe not, but Windows has since Vista.  Maybe you should give up
Win-DOS?

> > >
> > > For my usecase, I need it to maintain symlinks even after it gets
> > > untarred.  I have noticed that WinRar is able to maintain symlinks
> > > after extraction.
> >
> > I am not sure how this should work, given the fact that Win-DOS does not
> > correctly support symlinks.
>
> Internally the software uses junction points as mentioned in below
> link to create symlinks.
> http://www.codeproject.com/KB/winsdk/junctionpoints.aspx
----
Technically, it should use 'mklink' which are windows symlinks.

Junctions are similar but are used to do mounts of file systems.
For most practical purposes, they should work 'fine'...


Cygwin walks all over Window's mountpoints and refuses to honor
them as mountpoint, so untaring things under cygwin will overwrite
mount points...

the mountd/linkd (types of junctions) are honored in one case in
cygwin, but not in the other.  Cygwin will use the native windows
symlinks when requested(an ENV var), to create symlinks.

Given that Windows (What is win-dos?  never heard of such -- I hope
you don't believe windows = dos -- as that'd be really wrong) is windows,
and it has symlinks, I don't see how you can claim windows symlinks don't
work.  If you want to claim they are not POSIX, that's a bit disingenuous as
Windows isn't POSIX.

Best bet might be to use cygwin to untar your files... it can create 
win-symlinks.

As for making multiple copies of files when untarring them?

That's not the same as creating links.

My font dir is 13.5 Meg if the links are ignored while only ~4-5M if linked.

(actually use hardlinks... which, BTW, windows also has).