Re: [hackers] [PATCH] tar: if first argument doesn't have a leading dash, prepend one

From: Alex Pilon <alp_AT_alexpilon.ca>
Date: Mon, 18 May 2020 13:45:22 -0400

On Mon, May 18, 2020 at 06:59:36PM +0200, Laslo Hunhold wrote:
> POSIX "replaced" tar with pax(1)[0],

I'm all for promoting pax (or cpio) over tar, whether with find or what
was that long discussion about a replacement for it from a while ago.
Though on output it seems a bit primitive to support only globs for
selecting things. Something like the converse of find (maybe also with
rename or move of extracted objects' paths and attributes, or some map
to be general) on output seems preferable even if that's really an edge
use case.

Talk is cheap though. I'll shut up now.

> but we should still, if we offer tar, follow POSIX's command line
> utility guidelines (forgot what they were called) which also specify
> "--" as end of flags, among other things. One should be able to rely
> on these, if you ask me.

If only our “peers” these days would think to learn or consider the
existence of such conventions, here and elsewhere, or even show an
interest and put some effort in learning the rationale.

regards,

Alex
Received on Mon May 18 2020 - 19:45:22 CEST