Re: [Bug-tar] Re: tar has strange command line argument parsing

[Martin Michlmayr]

* Paul Eggert <address@hidden> [2005-11-04 10:56]:
> The POSIX guidelines say that options like -b and -f that take
> arguments can be spelled either like this, with a space before
> the option-arguments:
>    tar -cvb 20 -f x.tar file1 file2
> 
> or like this, without a space:
>    tar -tvb20 -fx.tar file1 file2

> Also, POSIX says the operand to an option can begin with "-".  For
> example,
> 
> I hope this helps to explain the behavior you observed.

Thanks a lot for this explanation.  I understand the behaviour of tar
now.  I also agree it makes sense to follow POSIX, even though I
personally think it's weird that POSIX would allow for something like
"-tvb20".
-- 
Martin Michlmayr
http://www.cyrius.com/