Re: [Bug-tar] tar doesn't handle some tarballs created under Microsoft Windows

[Paul Eggert]

"Ali Sabil" <address@hidden> writes:

> I would like to report that GNU Tar, doesn't handle some tarball containing
> \ as directory separator created
> under Microsoft Windows.

\ is a valid character in an ordinary Unix file name; it is not a
directory separator.  tar must be able to extract such file names, and
in your case it is doing so correctly as I understand it.

It might be reasonable to add an option to GNU tar that says "treat \
as a directory separator when extracting", but this behavior should
not be the default.  But personally I think such an option should be
low priority, as people using tar on Windows should learn to use /
rather than \ when specifying file names.