Re: Automake and new tar

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>> "Stepan" == Stepan Kasal <address@hidden> writes:

 Stepan> One question comes to mind: why couldn't be the option
 Stepan> filename-length-max=99 default if tar-v7 is used?

Because tar-v7 is a misnomer for the historical practice, which
is to use the first working command among `tar chof', `tar chf',
and `tar cf'.  This selection is done during `make dist' by
missing.

So with recent GNU tar, what is expected to happen is that `tar
chof' will fail on long filenames, but them missing will run
`tar chf' which will create a GNU tar archive.  With older GNU
tar, `tar chof' will use GNU extensions for long filenames
directly.  With non-GNU tar, rerunning `tar chf' will likely
produce a ustar tarball.

I'm not really fond of the way all this works, but this used to
allow people to build tarball with long filenames even before
the tar-* option were introduced.  Hence filename-length-max=99
was suggested as an option only for those who care.
-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz