pax in linux tarball

[Natanael Copa]

On Thu, 2006-05-18 at 21:19 +1200, Glenn L. McGrath wrote:
> On Wed, 17 May 2006 16:15:12 +0200
> Natanael Copa <natanael.copa at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Checked out the trunk and busybox tar gives me an error message:
> >
> > tar: pax is not tar
> >
> > However, today have been busy so I havent been able to track it down.
> > It looks like the linux tar archive is a pax archive
> > (tar.formated.typeflag is obviously set to 'g'). I guess gnu tar handles
> > pax format as well, while busybox tar does not. (looks like bsd tar
> > handles it too)
> 
> If you look at the start of the tar file with a binary viewer you can
> its clearly pax.

Thanks for confirming it.
So the question is: should busybox tar support pax or not?

I suggest:
* if we want it, add it to the TODO list (after 1.2 release)
* if we want to do something about it now, change the error message to
something like: "pax format not supported"

> 
> I unpacked it and recreated the tarball with GNU tar and it didnt
> default to pax.
> 
> Could pax be the default tarball format that git uses ?

Could be.

> 
> Glenn
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