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@@ -1894,13 +1894,33 @@ All abnormal exits, whether immediate or delayed, should always be
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clearly diagnosed on @code{stderr}, after a line stating the nature of
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the error.
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-@GNUTAR{} returns only a few exit statuses. I'm really
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-aiming simplicity in that area, for now. If you are not using the
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-@option{--compare} @option{--diff}, @option{-d}) option, zero means
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-that everything went well, besides maybe innocuous warnings. Nonzero
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-means that something went wrong. Right now, as of today, ``nonzero''
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-is almost always 2, except for remote operations, where it may be
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-128.
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+Possible exit codes of @GNUTAR{} are summarized in the following
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+table:
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+
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+@table @asis
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+@item 0
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+@samp{Successful termination}.
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+
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+@item 1
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+@samp{Some files differ}. If tar was invoked with @option{--compare}
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+(@option{--diff}, @option{-d}) command line option, this means that
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+some files in the archive differ from their disk counterparts
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+(@pxref{compare}). If tar was given @option{--create},
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+@option{--append} or @option{--update} option, this exit code means
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+that some files were changed while being archived and so the resulting
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+archive does not contain the exact copy of the file set.
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+
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+@item 2
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+@samp{Fatal error}. This means that some fatal, unrecoverable error
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+occurred.
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+@end table
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+
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+If @command{tar} has invoked a subprocess and that subprocess exited with a
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+nonzero exit code, @command{tar} exits with that code as well.
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+This can happen, for example, if @command{tar} was given some
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+compression option (@pxref{gzip}) and the external compressor program
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+failed. Another example is @command{rmt} failure during backup to the
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+remote device (@pxref{Remote Tape Server}).
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@node using tar options
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@section Using @command{tar} Options
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Sergey Poznyakoff