Problem with GNU tar version 1.13.25

[Wayne Pollock]

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I think I have found a bug in the current version of tar (1.13.25).

Background:

RedHat Linux v 7.2:  uname -a output
  Linux YborStudent 2.4.18-3 #1 Thu Apr 18 07:37:53 EDT 2002 i686
unknown

I was writing a simple find and tar script to backup /etc files,
and ran across a problem with files with meta-characters in their
names (such as blank).  I remember that find and xargs could
be used to have null separated filename.  This didn't work as
expected.  A little more reading on tar convinced me that xargs
wasn't needed at all.

Problem description:

Either with or without xargs, tar was archiving many files more than
once!  In some cases it seems to be once only, sometimes twice,
and sometimes more than that.  This only appears to be a problem
with "--null -T -" options.

I know the problem isn't with find (or xargs) since I checked
that as well.  Here is some testing output:

address@hidden root]# cd /etc
address@hidden etc]# find . -print0 | tar -cz --null -T - -f
/tmp/foo.tgz
address@hidden etc]# tar -tzvf /tmp/foo.tgz |grep sendmail.mc
- - -rw-r--r-- root/root      2716 2002-04-08 06:55:39
./mail/sendmail.mc
- - -rw-r--r-- root/root      2716 2002-04-08 06:55:39
./mail/sendmail.mc
- - -rw-r--r-- root/root      2716 2002-04-08 06:55:39
./mail/sendmail.mc
address@hidden etc]# ls -l mail/sendmail.mc
- - -rw-r--r--    1 root     root         2716 Apr  8  2002
mail/sendmail.mc
address@hidden etc]# find . -print0 |tr \\000 \\012 |grep
sendmail.mc
./mail/sendmail.mc
address@hidden etc]# tar --version
tar (GNU tar) 1.13.25
...
address@hidden etc]# find . |wc -l
   2464
address@hidden etc]# tar -ztvf /tmp/foo.tgz |wc -l
   9397
address@hidden etc]#

The archive file created by the above (foo.tgz) is not
attached but can be sent upon request.

Please let me know what you find out (or if you don't plan to
follow this up.)

Respectfully,

Wayne Pollock <address@hidden>
Hillsborough Community College, Tampa Florida USA.

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