Re: Incorrect information in the manual about the tar-v7 option

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2008-09-17 23:19:14 -0500, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2008, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
>> I'd say that old, limited, non-standard formats are likely to be less
>> tested than current ones, thus they are more likely to have problems
>> with new tools.
>
> Why would you say that?  Are you saying that the millions of tar files  
> already out there have recently been rendered no good?

I don't know how many.

> The several tar format variants have various limitations such as on file 
> name length, path name length, UID values, and file size. Research is 
> required to know which one is "best", and it is not necessarily the most 
> recent standard version.

I'm not saying to use the most recent standard version. But according
to the automake manual, it may be a good idea to use ustar instead of
V7 (sufficiently old: 1988, standard: POSIX, fewer limitations). Is
there somewhere some document that lists various tar implementations
and what they support?

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <address@hidden> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)