Re: tar option suggestion

[Paul Eggert]

> Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 19:39:46 GMT
> From: Jim Hefferon <address@hidden>
> 
> Doesn't mean that (after compression, which is when I am interested)
> that all files are padded out to a multiple of 512 bytes (even 1*512)?

Yes, that's right.

> The difficulty is that our users (who are often not experienced
> systems folks) are troubled by the ``trailing garbage'' that gzip
> reports.

Use --blocking-factor=1 to create the tar image, and you shouldn't
have that problem.

>    ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/packages/TeX/macros/texinfo.tar.gz

Here's how I fixed up that tar image.

  $ gtar xzf texinfo.tar.gz

  gzip: stdin: decompression OK, trailing garbage ignored
  gtar: Child returned status 2
  gtar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
  $ gtar --blocking-factor=1 -czf texinfo1.tar.gz texinfo

texinfo1.tar.gz doesn't have the problem:

  $ mv texinfo texinfo.bak
  $ gtar xzf texinfo1.tar.gz
  $ gdiff -pru texinfo texinfo.bak
  $ 

You can use the same idea when you create a tar image.  You can also
use it to repair tar images that elicit the warnings.