[NTLUG:Discuss] tar problem -- bad browsers that remove the .gz extension (but not the compression)

[Robert Pearson]

Bryan,
Thanks for all the information on tar. I have learned a lot and you have
answered some very old "tar" questions for me.

My email seems to have generated some confusion. I would like to set
the record straight now that Ralph has the answer he needs, which is to
use "-r" instead of "-A".
Mark Hanna gave "change the -A to a -r" in the first reply.

Bryan J. Smith wrote---
>How the heck did you get that name?

I didn't. I copied it straight from URL---
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-tar/2004-01/msg00037.html

Since this looks like an official GNU "bug" site and the message is dated
January, 2004, I thought it might be relevant since I am not a "tar" guru.
Just a user. Including the message in-stream, as a service to readers of
the email, was apparently very confusing.

Bryan J. Smith wrote---
>Applying a little "professional negligence"* (i.e., running MS IE ;-).

I run Firefox on all my machines and I recommend it to everyone. I was
glad to see all the "professional" IT pundits finally recommend Firefox to
a desperate world. In my "professional" ignorance I could not be sure that
a move to Firefox from MS IE or Mozilla would not be going from the
"frying pan" to the "fire". Mozilla had more features than I wanted. At one
time I wanted a "feature-laden" tool like MS IE or Mozilla. Not any more.

Bryan J. Smith wrote---
> $ rpm -q tar
> tar-1.13.25-12

Thanks for this way to get the tar version. Here is what I get---
$tar --version
tar (GNU tar) 1.13.25.
$rpm -q tar
tar-1.13.25-11 (the "-number" is handy to know)

I had no idea that the version number of tar could be important. There
haven't been many changes to tar over my career.
I also thought it was interesting that there were no "error" messages while
tar was creating, or trying to create, the archives. All the errors were
from
trying to "list" or extract archives.

Bryan J. Smith wrote---
>Now there _is_ a new Tar 1.14 (1.13.9x) under development...
>
>Right now GNU Tar 1.13 is somewhat of a "bastard." ...
>
>The new POSIX 2001 standard addresses those limitations...
>...I recommend you use either "pax" or "star."
>
>The nice thing about "star" is that it supports most of the major GNU
>options as well as GNU Tar 1.1x non-standard format.

I am glad to see tar is finally getting updated. It is a valuable tool and
one that
has been used by many of us for years.

Thanks,

Robert Pearson
rdpears2001 at yahoo.com

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