Subject: Re: why does pkg_install continue to use GNU Tar?!?!?!?!
To: None <tech-pkg@netbsd.org, tech-userlevel@netbsd.org>
From: Alistair Crooks <agc@wasabisystems.com>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 05/08/2002 08:56:06
On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 08:08:42PM -0400, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> [ On Tuesday, May 7, 2002 at 23:37:16 (+0200), Alistair Crooks wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: why does pkg_install continue to use GNU Tar?!?!?!?!
> >
> > The issue with pax(1) is its support for the GNU tar -C extension.
> 
> That is not a problem.  The fixes to pax I mentioned include this
> feature in the 'tar' interface to pax.  They were a pre-requisite to the
> changes I submitted.  As far as I can tell they've been there since
> before 1.5 was even branched.

You're right - the fixes have been in pax for a while. They are
also known not to function correctly. Given that fact, it would be
a trifle silly for us to move over to using it.

> > Each package with a @cwd directive in its PLIST needs this to
> > function correctly. We are moving to eradicate these from pkgsrc,
> > but haven't finished the transition yet.
> > 
> > There are still 4 left, all in the japanese category.
> 
> Eradicating them will certainly make it easier to use the native 'pax'
> interface to pax, but it's not a necessary prerequisite to fixing
> pkg_install.

Au contraire - we cannot switch over to using pax whilst those
packages still use '@cwd' in their PLISTs. Even once we have
eradicated them, there are a huge number of binary packages out
there which need the @cwd functionality in there.

Regards,
Alistair