[Bug-tar] --format=v7 is a misnomer

[Gunnar Ritter]

Hi,

when used with --format=v7, GNU tar 1.14 creates archives which are
incompatible with Unix 7th Edition tar because they contain entries
for directories:

$ tar tvf o
drwxr-xr-x576/1        0 Jun  2 12:20 2004 directory/
-rw-r--r--576/1        8 Jun  2 12:20 2004 directory/file
$ v7tar xf o
Tar: blocksize = 20
tar: directory/ - cannot create
$ 

Extraction with System V tar implementations (up to SVR3) will
show similar results.

What --format=v7 really creates are archives in traditional BSD
format, as introduced with 4.0BSD.

Perhaps --format=v7 should omit directories from archives, and
a new --format=4bsd option or the like could be introduced which
creates archives in the current --format=v7 format.

        Gunnar

-- 
http://omnibus.ruf.uni-freiburg.de/~gritter