Re: [Bug-tar] Re: Verifying a tar File.

[Joerg Schilling]

Ralph Corderoy <address@hidden> wrote:

> I've just found
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-tar/2004-12/msg00014.html where
> Sergey explains 1.14.91 fixes a bug `in the algorithm of recognizing
> sparse archive members'.  Is it an error that only affects tar file
> reading and so the tar file was created OK?  Is the error message a
> spurious one that doesn't affect extraction of the sparse file or any
> other one?

There is also a general non TAR compliance with sparse files inside GNU tar
archives.

I reported this missconception in 1994 (together with a decription on
how a backwards compatible correction could be made) but no no avail until
now...

---->
The size of sparse files in GNU tar is the size of the compressed file plus the
size of the sparse hole list, but GNU tar only uses the size of the 
compressed file for the tar header.

For this reason no tar implementation can read GNU tar archives unlass it is 
aware of the missconception.

If GNU tar would use the right size in the archive header, then there was no
need to correclty detect sparse files in order to list them.

Jörg

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