On Oct 16,  2:45pm, mrg@eterna.com.au (matthew green) wrote:
-- Subject: re: CVS commit: basesrc/bin/pax

|    
|    Log Message:
|    Support gnu long filename extensions by default for tar on create, list, and
|    extract. We now generate GNU tar archives by default ("ustar  ^@" instead of
|    "ustar^@00"). GNU extensions can be disabled with --strict.
| 
| do we have to do this?  can't we please only use it when necessary?

Well, it is not easy to do, because we don't know if we are going to need
a long link unless we examine all the files in the archive.

|    XXX: long symlinks untested.
| 
| these used to work a few years ago.

yes, and they will still work for reading. it is writing that I have not
tested.

christos