Re: [Bug-tar] [PATCH] Do not fail when 'compress' is unable to provide sufficient compress ratio

[Pavel Raiskup]

On Sunday, April 28, 2013 07:23:05 PM Antonio Diaz Diaz wrote:
> Paul Eggert wrote:
> >>Converting gzip to the general API seems the right thing to do in the long 
> >>term.
> >
> > That might be wise, yes, but there might be other users who
> > expect the current behavior, and we'd need to consult with them.
>
> To my surprise I have found that the current behavior is that gzip does
> not return '2' even if the compressed file is larger than the original:

Thanks, there are probably other circumstances in 'gzip' invoking warning?

> > And there are a lot of other compressor programs to update.
> > In the meantime 'tar' should work with what's out there.
>
> If it is not broken, don't fix it.  I think nobody has reported a problem
> caused by any compressor other than compress returning 2.

I would not wait for a bugreport..  Tar should really accept API of
compressors it uses imo.

> Most probably it is the documentation of those other compressors
> (including gzip) what is wrong, not the code.

I guess it is not bug in gzip doc, but afaik Paul is also 'gzip'
maintainer so he would be able to talk about gzip more.

Pavel