[Bug-tar] Previously existing files should not be an error when -k is specified

[Jonathan Kamens]

If I specify -k to tell tar not to overwrite old files, and indeed there are some old files that tar doesn't overwrite, then it prints error messages about these files, which is wrong, and it exits with a non-zero status, which is also wrong.

 

If I specify -k, it's because I know there are old files and I don't want them to be overwritten.  It's not an error condition if what I already know turns out to be true.

 

If this behavior is actually intentional, then there needs to be another command-line switch I can specify to indicate that I don't want to overwrite old files AND I don't want tar to complain about them.

 

(This is tar 1.15.1, but from looking at the documentation, I don't see any indication that this behavior has changed in newer versions.)

 

  Jik