tar/TODO

Suggestions for improving GNU tar.

* Incorporate fixes from major distributions, e.g., Debian GNU/Linux.

* Add support for GNU private keywords in POSIX 1003.1-2001 headers,
so that the GNU extensions (--sparse, --incremental, --label and
--multi-volume) may be used with POSIX archives.

* Add support for a 'pax' command that conforms to POSIX 1003.1-2001.
  This would unify paxutils with tar.

* Remove command-line incompatibilities between GNU tar and UNIX tar
  as specified by UNIX98.  The main problem is:

     l   GNU tar doesn't cross filesystem boundaries.
	 UNIX98 tar warns if all links cannot be resolved.
	   (GNU tar --check-links option)

  Perhaps we could announce a phase-in period where "l" changes in semantics.
  In the meanwhile we could make the "l" semantics to be determined by the
  value of POSIXLY_CORRECT variable.

* Interoperate better with Joerg Schilling's star implementation.

* Add an option to remove files that compare successfully.

  From: Roesinger Eric <ROESINGE@tce.com>
  Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 18:43:43 -0500

  It would be useful to be able to use '--remove-files' with '--diff',
  to remove all files that compare successfully, when verifying a backup.

* Add an option to cut away the first N output path elements:

  From: Marc Haber <mh+debian-bugs@zugschlus.de>
  Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 08:55:31 +0200

  some archives have members like
  foo/bar
  foo/baz
  foo/bam
  
  When I now want to extract the three members bar, baz and bam to the
  directory fom instead foo, I need to extract to foo and then to move
  the files over manually.

  patch(1) solves that problem by offering an option taking the number
  of path elements to cut away before using the path name. With an
  option like that, the above problem could be solved with

  tar --extract --cut-path-elements 1 --directory fom

  
* Copyright notice

  Copyright (C) 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

  This file is part of GNU tar.

  GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
  any later version.

  GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  GNU General Public License for more details.

  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  along with tar; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to
  the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
  Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.


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