--newer-mtime expects a date

[George Herson]

hi.

My tar version is: tar (GNU tar) 1.12.  My OS is gnu/linux 2.2.14-5.0.

http://www.gnu.org/manual/tar-1.12/html_chapter/tar_3.html#SEC37 says:
"--newer-mtime
In conjunction with `--newer', tar will only add files whose
contents have changed (as opposed to just `--newer', which will
also back up files for which any status information has changed)."

However, when i used --newer='29 May 2001' and --newer-mtime, tar's
response was "tar: More than one threshold date".  The fix was to remove
the --newer option and specify the --newer-mtime option with a date:
--newer-mtime='29 May 2001'.  So tar's docs should reflect this
expectation of --newer-mtime.


Another item:  
http://www.gnu.org/manual/tar-1.12/html_chapter/tar_9.html#SEC135, which
talks about --verify, should say that, unless you're only archiving
files below the current directory, one needs to specify --absolute-name
for --verify to find your files on disk.

Three examples: 
[root]# tar --create --verify --file=test.tar Mail/context
[root]# tar --create --verify --absolute-names --file=test.tar
/root/Mail/context
[root]# tar --create --verify --file=test.tar /root/Mail/context
tar: Removing leading `/' from absolute path names in the archive
root/Mail/context: File does not exist

The tar in the 3rd example failed.  What happened is that w/o the
--absolute-name option, tar removed the leading `/' from absolute path
names in the archive and used that modified name to try and find the
file on disk to verify against. 

regards,
george herson