Re: gnu tar w/ --listed-incremental --files-from

[Miek Gieben]

[On 22 Jan, @15:26, Stepan wrote in "Re: gnu tar w/ --listed-increm ..."]
> Hello,
>       thank you for your bug report.
> 
> On Wed, Jan 15, 2003 at 10:44:41AM +0100, Miek Gieben wrote:
> > simular to this: tar --files-from FILELIST --listed-incremental INCLIST.
> > 
> > Now if I list directories in FILELIST, incremental backups work, but if I
> > list specific files in FILELIST, they are always stored in the archive.
> > 
> > Is this a bug?
> 
> last time I saw the source code, I noticed that tar will probably behave
> this way.  But the source seemed quite confusing to me and I thought
> noone will actually encounter the bug.
> 
> You did.  :-)
> 
> OK, I'd say this _is_ a bug.
> 
> But I'm not brave enough to fix it.  I don't know whether the tar
> maintainer has enough energy to work on it.

well, I also looked at the source code, and you're right about it being
confusing. But I still have hopes that a fix is not that hard to produce.
But who is the _current_ maintainer of tar? README and Changelog are years
old...

> There is a workaround, though:
> create a temporary directory, put there hard links to the files you want
> incrementally backup, and put the name of that directory to the filelist.
> 
> This way it should work.

hmmm, i'm using tar in another program (hdup), to produce backups. I cannot be
sure that all the files that are being backupped are on the same partition.
Actually, chances of that being the case are rather slim.

> In case you decide to fix the bug yourself, be sure to start with the
> newest version available:
> 
>  - get tar-1.13.25
> 
>  - get my patch which tried to solve a related issue:
>     http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-utils/2003-01/msg00019.html
>    the bug report which made me to write that patch is available from:
>     http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-utils/2002-12/msg00248.html
> 
> Of course, I don't know whether the maintainer will accept my patch, so
> I cannot tell you whether you should use it if you decide to produce a patch.
> 
> Hope this helps,

it does,
thanks,

grtz Miek