[Bug-tar] Parsing the output of `tar tvf'

[Otto Maddox]

I'm trying to write a wrapper around GNU Tar which determines the
stored permissions, owner, group and name of each file in the archive.

I've written a clunky Bash script which parses the output of
`tar tvf' using read, awk, sed, etc.  There are all sorts of problems
involving filenames with spaces in them, etc.

Does anyone know of any tools, or have any hints, for listing the
contents of the archive in a more easily parsable way?  I've read
about file formats in chapter 8 of the Tar manual, but I don't really
want to write a C program, if I can avoid it.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

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