Re: bsdcpio and bsdtar installed by default

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> You're so loudly proud, that you have removed GNU tar long time ago,
> but let's put shiny pink glasses aside and put it straight.

> There's effectively no pax/tar in NetBSD.

> You may ask why, here's the reason.  Both "pax" and "tar" stand for
> archivers.  Archiving means preserving information, but neither pax,
> nor tar do it.  Neither can handle files with long names, [...]

This is inherent in tar.  The tar archive format - to the extent that
there is a single such thing - has only 100 bytes for archive member
pathnames.

Using GNU tar does not change this.  GNUtar archives with long-named
members are not tar archives; they're GNUtar archives, and it's not
fair to say we don't have tar support when what you're actually missing
is close-to-but-not-quite-tar support.  (Actually, I think GNUtar
archives with long-named members might be tar archives, but with really
bizarre contents - I haven't been able to find any doc on GNU tar's
extensions except the code itself, so I'm not sure.  Admittedly, I
haven't looked very hard.)

> Back in time, I worked on this issue and found that the only solution
> is using GNU tar.

Depending on how far back in time, you may have missed an option.  My
tar (well, strictly, tar-alike, like GNU's) also handles long-named
members transparently, but it's been around for only a decade or so.

> It is GNU tar, what gives portability and interoperability,

Portability only to the extent that GNU tar itself is portable.;
interoperability only with itself, or when not using extensions like
long names.

Or if other implementations have duplicated GNU tar's extensions, I
suppose, but has anyone done that?

As for pax, I don't know; I've never even looked at pax.

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