[Bug-tar] Problem preserving timestamps in directories when mixing symlinks and hardlinks

[Andrew]

Hi maintainers of tar,


In the following version:

$ tar --version
tar (GNU tar) 1.30
Copyright (C) 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by John Gilmore and Jay Fenlason.


I backup the following files with symlinks and hardlinks:

$ mkdir original
$ cd original
$ mkdir -p 0/a/b
$ touch 0/a/c
$ ln -s ../c 0/a/b/c
$ touch -d "-1week" -h $(find)
$ cp -al 0 1
$ cp -al 0 2
$ find -mtime -1
.
$ tar -cf ../backup.tar .
$ cd ..


And I restore the files from tar:

$ mkdir restore
$ cd restore
$ tar -xf ../backup.tar
$ find -mtime -1
.
./1/a/b
./0/a/b
$


But, as you can in the find result, tar doesn't preserve the timestamp of 
certain directories. I think this is a bug.

Thank you for your attention!.

Regards,
Andrew.