tar/TODO

Suggestions for improving GNU tar.

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

* Add support for restoring file time stamps to sub-second resolution,
  if the file system supports this.

* Add support for restoring the attributes of symbolic links, for
  OSes like FreeBSD that have the lutimes and lchmod functions.

* --append should bail out if the two archives are of different types.

* Add support for GNU private keywords in POSIX 1003.1-2001 headers,
so that the GNU extensions (--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)

  Currently tar prints a warning when this option is used. Sometime
  in the future its semantics will be changed to that of --check-links.
  In the meanwhile we should announce a phase-in period where "l"
  changes in semantics.

* Interoperate better with Joerg Schilling's star implementation.

* Add an option to remove files that compare successfully.

  From: Roesinger Eric <[email protected]>
  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 tests for the new functonality.

* Consider this:

  From: Dennis Pund
  Subject: TAR suggestion...
  Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 18:26:36 -0500 (EST)

  What I would like to do is:

  foo my.tar.gz | tar -xzOf - | tar -cMf - -L 650000 - | bar

  where 'foo' is a program that retrieves the archive and streams it
  to stdout and bar is a program that streams the stdin to CDR.

  (http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-utils/2002-05/msg00022.html)


* Copyright notice

  Copyright (C) 2003, 2004 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., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
  Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.


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