Re: [Bug-tar] make your tar archive even more anonymous

[Tim Kientzle]

On Jul 4, 2012, at 7:01 AM, Denis Excoffier wrote:
> 
> When tar (e.g. tar-1.26) creates an archive of a directory, the
> ordering of files (as shown by "ls -f") is preserved in the archive.
> 
> I would like an option to make this ordering constant (e.g. alphanumeric),
> in order that two directories that compare equal (with "diff -r") would
> produce the same archive (provided of course that appropriate --mtime,
> --owner, --group and --mode options are also set to the same values).

Does this satisfy your requirement?

find dir | sort | tar cf output.tar -I -

The option you propose can have unpleasant implications
for tar's memory requirements.  Sorting each directory
requires first reading all the items in that directory
into memory.

Tim