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Re: [Bug-tar] Software Proposal


From: Pavel Raiskup
Subject: Re: [Bug-tar] Software Proposal
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2017 10:06:18 +0200

On Saturday, September 23, 2017 4:14:54 PM CEST Charlie Sale wrote:
> My though was to develop a C API that would be part of the GNU tar package.

I believe something like this was planned to happen in paxutils [1], from
the README file of that project:

  | GNU paxutils aims to provide:
  |
  |   1. tar implementation, replacing current GNU tar,
  |   2. cpio implementation, replacing current GNU cpio,
  |   3. pax implementation, conforming to POSIX standard.
  |
  | All three implementations will be built around a common (presumably
  | shared) library.

So, I would suggest you to start there, and Sergey probably has some more
info.  Shared library would be invaluable, same as '/bin/pax'
implementation in GNU (yeah, cpio/tar are LEGACY utilities when you have a
look at POSIX specs..).

The problem is that most of the work is nowadays done in GNU tar only,
without paying too much attention to merge the stuff back to paxutils
project;  so I guess a lot of manpower is needed to get this work done.

> It would handle tasks that would be completed via the command line
> option.  My thinking is that it would convenient to have a built-in API
> instead of having to find outside dependencies.

This sounds like you plan to implement work-around to the fact that paxlib
has no shared lib;  so I would much rather see this implemented properly.
API built on top of execve('/bin/tar' ..) would be brittle, with a bit
unexpected output..

Pavel




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