Re: [Bug-tar] tar-1.25 got a tarball file lager than the dir

[Paul Eggert]

On 12/22/2010 09:32 AM, xinglp wrote:
> It was created by "cd /usr/share/ && tar -jcf ~/doc.tar.bz2 doc".  I
> notice it was larger than ever before.

> http://wholesalesoffer.com/doc.tar.bz2

That tar file contains multiple copies of many (but not all)
of its files.  For example:

$ tar tvf doc.tar.bz2 | grep doc/tar-1.25/tar.html/verify.html
-rw-r--r-- root/root      7464 2010-12-22 02:21 
doc/tar-1.25/tar.html/verify.html
-rw-r--r-- root/root      7464 2010-12-22 02:21 
doc/tar-1.25/tar.html/verify.html

That explains why the tar file is too big.  When you extract from it,
the later copy overrides the earlier copy, so it's as if the earlier
copy does not exist.

What puzzles me, though is why the command "tar -jcf ~/doc.tar.bz2 doc"
would create a tar file containing multiple copies.  It shouldn't.
If you run the same command again, do you see the same problem with
the tar file?  If so, what is the output of the following?

tar -vjcf ~/doc.tar.bz2 doc

I just tried that, and for me it created a file that was
5,904,974 bytes, or 38,942,720 bytes uncompressed, which
sounds about right.