-T option

[Ben Kohlen]

I don't know if this qualifies as a bug, but it is not consistent with
the behaviour I had expected from tar.  When using -T to extract
specific files from an archive, if one of the files requested is within
another file you have requested, tar complains that it cannot find the
sub-file.  An example follows:

$ tar -tf sometar.tar
somedir/
somedir/somefile
$ tar -xvf sometar.tar -T - <<end
> somedir
> somedir/somefile
> end
somedir/
somedir/somefile
tar: somedir/somefile: Not found in archive
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
$

The exception to this is if the subfile is requested before the
directory it exists in:
$ tar -xvf sometar.tar -T - <<end
> somedir/somefile
> somedir/
> end
somedir/
somedir/somefile
$

Clearly this is not a critical bug, but the behaviour is quirky, and the
fact that the ordering of the requests changes the behaviour indicates
some wierdness to me.  Of course, just the fact that someone would
request a directory and it's contents individually using the -T option
indicates some quirkiness on their part, but it was just more convenient
for me to write my script that way.

I will fix this myself if I can find the time, but perhaps it could be
added to the TODO list shipped with the tar source.

BTW, I am using:
$ tar --version
tar (GNU tar) 1.13.17

Cheers,
- Ben