gnats/433: tar --delete option appears overzealous

[suz]

>Number:         433
>Notify-List:    
>Category:       gnats
>Synopsis:       tar --delete option appears overzealous
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       high
>Responsible:    unassigned
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Fri Nov 15 16:17:47 -0500 2002
>Originator:     Suzan Wassman
>Release:        1.13.25-4
>Organization:

>Environment:
Dell Pentium III
RedHat 7.3
gcc 2.96-112
glibc 2.2.5-37
>Description:
If the --delete option to tar specifies a file that does not exist in the 
tarball, tar deletes the last file in the tarball instead.

   tar -f tarball.tar --delete unwanted.txt

This will remove unwanted.txt if it DOES exist in tarball.tar, or if it DOESN'T 
exist, it will remove the last file listed in tarball.tar.
>How-To-Repeat:
See "Description" above
>Fix:
My workaround was to create the initial tarball and exclude the unwanted file
  tar cf tarball.tar --exclude unwanted.txt /my/backup/dir

This will not include unwanted.txt in tarball.tar; if unwanted.txt DOES NOT 
exist in /my/backup/dir tree, there do NOT appear to be any unpleasant 
surprises.
>Unformatted: