[Bug-tar] Re: possible tar 1.15.1 --delete bug ?

[Matt McCutchen]

On Fri, 2006-01-20 at 19:06 -0600, Paul Novak wrote:
> Perhaps "--delete" is not intended to work with compressed tar files.
> If that's true, I would suggest that that "--info" information be
> expanded because I couldn't find anywhere where it says that.

Buried in the info documentation in node 8.2.1 it does say:

        Notice also, that there are several restrictions on operations on
        compressed archives. First of all, compressed archives cannot be
        modified, i.e. you cannot update (`--update' (`-u')) them or delete
        (`--delete') members from them. Likewise, you cannot append another
        `tar' archive to a compressed archive using `--append' (`-r')).
        Secondly, multi-volume archives cannot be compressed.

But most tar users will never read that.  Since the man page does
mention that --delete is "not for use on mag tapes", shouldn't it also
mention that --delete cannot be used on compressed archives?
-- 
Matt McCutchen, ``hashproduct''
address@hidden -- http://mysite.verizon.net/hashproduct/