Mark wrote: > 1. GNU TAR 1.14 is required to unpack the source releases. Other > versions of tar are likely to report errors or silently unpack the > file incorrectly.
Now hold on there, bubaloo. I thought the warnings from older versions of tar were benign. The warnings I'm seeing from tar-1.13.19 are tar: pax_global_header: Unknown file type 'g', extracted as normal file Searching for this error message, I find a quote from Linus Torvalds, (http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/6/18/5): >Yes, git creates tar-archives that use the extended pax headers, and I >think you need tar-1.14 to fully understand them. They should not hurt >(apart from the warning) on older versions of tar. > >The extended header just contains a hidden comment record that tells the >git commit ID that was used to generate the tar-tree. > >Because it's extracted as a regular file (instead of tar knowing that it's >a comment header), you will now have a file called "pax_global_header" >that has the contents > 52 comment=9ee1c939d1cb936b1f98e8d81aeffab57bae46ab > >in it (where "9ee1c939d1cb936b1f98e8d81aeffab57bae46ab" is the git SHA1 >name of the Linux-2.6.12 commit). > >So it's not entirely "harmless" in that it causes a bogus file to be >created, but it's not like it's a huge problem either, and that bogus file >actually does contain real information (although it's not useful unless >you're a git user). So perhaps the release notes should say 1. GNU TAR 1.14 is recommended to unpack the source releases. Other versions of tar may issue the warning tar: pax_global_header: Unknown file type 'g', extracted as normal file and/or silently create spurious files named 'pax_global_header'. These are artifacts reflecting the fact that the tarballs were created with git. Or something like that. Or is tar-1.14 really required? That would be highly annoying. - Dan -- Wine for Windows ISVs: http://kegel.com/wine/isv
