[Bug-tar] bug or feature??

[Janes, Jeffrey]

I am using 1.13.25 tar on a HP (HP-UX busch B.11.11 U 9000/800 1843146004 unlimited-user license) . I am trying untar a tar file into a symbolic linked directory.

 

total 20
drwxrwxrwx   2 ccuser     dba             96 Jun  9 09:40 jj
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root       sys              2 Jun  9 09:40 osid -> jj

 

The test tar file looks like this:

 tar tvf  osidtar.tar
drwxrwxrwx ccuser/dba        0 2004-06-08 13:01:32 u/3rdparty/osid/
drwxrwxrwx ccuser/dba        0 2004-06-08 13:01:47 u/3rdparty/osid/links/
lrwxrwxrwx ccuser/dba        0 2004-06-08 13:01:47 u/3rdparty/osid/links/apache -> /opt/apache
lrwxrwxrwx ccuser/dba        0 2004-06-08 13:01:47 u/3rdparty/osid/links/gs -> /usr/local/gs7.05
lrwxrwxrwx ccuser/dba        0 2004-06-08 13:01:47 u/3rdparty/osid/links/isofax -> /opt/isofax-9.01
lrwxrwxrwx ccuser/dba        0 2004-06-08 13:01:47 u/3rdparty/osid/links/jdk -> /opt/java1.4

 

After untarring "cd /; tar xvpf osidtar.tar"

The link between osid & jj is broken and instead of files going into the directory jj, a directory "osid" is made and all files are dumped in it.

 

busch:root:1043> cd /;/usr/local/bin/tar -xvpf /u/3rdparty/osidtar.tar          
u/3rdparty/osid/
u/3rdparty/osid/links/
u/3rdparty/osid/links/apache
u/3rdparty/osid/links/gs
u/3rdparty/osid/links/gsLib
u/3rdparty/osid/links/imagemagick
u/3rdparty/osid/links/isofax
u/3rdparty/osid/links/jdk
u/3rdparty/osid/links/tomcat
busch:root:1044> ls -l /u/3rdparty
total 20
drwxrwxrwx   2 ccuser     dba             96 Jun  9 09:40 jj
drwxrwxrwx   3 ccuser     dba             96 Jun  8 13:01 osid
-rw-rw-rw-   1 ccuser     dba          10240 Jun  8 13:03 osidtar.tar

 

 I have found that using the --overwrite-dir does not break the link but it does not seem like I should have to do this.

The standard version of tar in /usr/bin does not break the link.

Is this the way GNU tar defaults are designed? Is there a better option than --overwrite-dir to use?

I have reviewed the --help section and don't see anything obvious.

Jeff Janes

Project Manager SCM

address@hidden
M ^c Kesson Information Solutions
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