Archive::Tar
- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
- Object Methods
- Archive::Tar->new( [$file, $compressed] )
- $tar->read ( $filename|$handle, [$compressed, {opt => 'val'}] )
- $tar->contains_file( $filename )
- $tar->extract( [@filenames] )
- $tar->extract_file( $file, [$extract_path] )
- $tar->list_files( [\@properties] )
- $tar->get_files( [@filenames] )
- $tar->get_content( $file )
- $tar->replace_content( $file, $content )
- $tar->rename( $file, $new_name )
- $tar->chmod( $file, $mode )
- $tar->chown( $file, $uname [, $gname] )
- $tar->remove (@filenamelist)
- $tar->clear
- $tar->write ( [$file, $compressed, $prefix] )
- $tar->add_files( @filenamelist )
- $tar->add_data ( $filename, $data, [$opthashref] )
- $tar->error( [$BOOL] )
- $tar->setcwd( $cwd );
- Class Methods
- Archive::Tar->create_archive($file, $compressed, @filelist)
- Archive::Tar->iter( $filename, [ $compressed, {opt => $val} ] )
- Archive::Tar->list_archive($file, $compressed, [\@properties])
- Archive::Tar->extract_archive($file, $compressed)
- $bool = Archive::Tar->has_io_string
- $bool = Archive::Tar->has_perlio
- $bool = Archive::Tar->has_zlib_support
- $bool = Archive::Tar->has_bzip2_support
- Archive::Tar->can_handle_compressed_files
- GLOBAL VARIABLES
- $Archive::Tar::FOLLOW_SYMLINK
- $Archive::Tar::CHOWN
- $Archive::Tar::CHMOD
- $Archive::Tar::SAME_PERMISSIONS
- $Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX
- $Archive::Tar::DEBUG
- $Archive::Tar::WARN
- $Archive::Tar::error
- $Archive::Tar::INSECURE_EXTRACT_MODE
- $Archive::Tar::HAS_PERLIO
- $Archive::Tar::HAS_IO_STRING
- $Archive::Tar::ZERO_PAD_NUMBERS
- Tuning the way RESOLVE_SYMLINK will works
- FAQ
- CAVEATS
- TODO
- SEE ALSO
- AUTHOR
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- COPYRIGHT
NAME
Archive::Tar - module for manipulations of tar archives
SYNOPSIS
- use Archive::Tar;
- my $tar = Archive::Tar->new;
- $tar->read('origin.tgz');
- $tar->extract();
- $tar->add_files('file/foo.pl', 'docs/README');
- $tar->add_data('file/baz.txt', 'This is the contents now');
- $tar->rename('oldname', 'new/file/name');
- $tar->chown('/', 'root');
- $tar->chown('/', 'root:root');
- $tar->chmod('/tmp', '1777');
- $tar->write('files.tar'); # plain tar
- $tar->write('files.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP); # gzip compressed
- $tar->write('files.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP); # bzip2 compressed
DESCRIPTION
Archive::Tar provides an object oriented mechanism for handling tar files. It provides class methods for quick and easy files handling while also allowing for the creation of tar file objects for custom manipulation. If you have the IO::Zlib module installed, Archive::Tar will also support compressed or gzipped tar files.
An object of class Archive::Tar represents a .tar(.gz) archive full of files and things.
Object Methods
Archive::Tar->new( [$file, $compressed] )
Returns a new Tar object. If given any arguments, new()
calls the
read()
method automatically, passing on the arguments provided to
the read()
method.
If new()
is invoked with arguments and the read()
method fails
for any reason, new()
returns undef.
$tar->read ( $filename|$handle, [$compressed, {opt => 'val'}] )
Read the given tar file into memory. The first argument can either be the name of a file or a reference to an already open filehandle (or an IO::Zlib object if it's compressed)
The read
will replace any previous content in $tar
!
The second argument may be considered optional, but remains for backwards compatibility. Archive::Tar now looks at the file magic to determine what class should be used to open the file and will transparently Do The Right Thing.
Archive::Tar will warn if you try to pass a bzip2 compressed file and the IO::Zlib / IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2 modules are not available and simply return.
Note that you can currently not pass a gzip
compressed
filehandle, which is not opened with IO::Zlib
, a bzip2
compressed
filehandle, which is not opened with IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2
, nor a string
containing the full archive information (either compressed or
uncompressed). These are worth while features, but not currently
implemented. See the TODO
section.
The third argument can be a hash reference with options. Note that all options are case-sensitive.
- limit
Do not read more than
limit
files. This is useful if you have very big archives, and are only interested in the first few files. - filter
Can be set to a regular expression. Only files with names that match the expression will be read.
- md5
Set to 1 and the md5sum of files will be returned (instead of file data) my $iter = Archive::Tar->iter( $file, 1, {md5 => 1} ); while( my $f = $iter->() ) { print $f->data . "\t" . $f->full_path . $/; }
- extract
If set to true, immediately extract entries when reading them. This gives you the same memory break as the
extract_archive
function. Note however that entries will not be read into memory, but written straight to disk. This means noArchive::Tar::File
objects are created for you to inspect.
All files are stored internally as Archive::Tar::File
objects.
Please consult the Archive::Tar::File documentation for details.
Returns the number of files read in scalar context, and a list of
Archive::Tar::File
objects in list context.
$tar->contains_file( $filename )
Check if the archive contains a certain file. It will return true if the file is in the archive, false otherwise.
Note however, that this function does an exact match using eq
on the full path. So it cannot compensate for case-insensitive file-
systems or compare 2 paths to see if they would point to the same
underlying file.
$tar->extract( [@filenames] )
Write files whose names are equivalent to any of the names in
@filenames
to disk, creating subdirectories as necessary. This
might not work too well under VMS.
Under MacPerl, the file's modification time will be converted to the
MacOS zero of time, and appropriate conversions will be done to the
path. However, the length of each element of the path is not
inspected to see whether it's longer than MacOS currently allows (32
characters).
If extract
is called without a list of file names, the entire
contents of the archive are extracted.
Returns a list of filenames extracted.
$tar->extract_file( $file, [$extract_path] )
Write an entry, whose name is equivalent to the file name provided to disk. Optionally takes a second parameter, which is the full native path (including filename) the entry will be written to.
For example:
- $tar->extract_file( 'name/in/archive', 'name/i/want/to/give/it' );
- $tar->extract_file( $at_file_object, 'name/i/want/to/give/it' );
Returns true on success, false on failure.
$tar->list_files( [\@properties] )
Returns a list of the names of all the files in the archive.
If list_files()
is passed an array reference as its first argument
it returns a list of hash references containing the requested
properties of each file. The following list of properties is
supported: name, size, mtime (last modified date), mode, uid, gid,
linkname, uname, gname, devmajor, devminor, prefix.
Passing an array reference containing only one element, 'name', is
special cased to return a list of names rather than a list of hash
references, making it equivalent to calling list_files
without
arguments.
$tar->get_files( [@filenames] )
Returns the Archive::Tar::File
objects matching the filenames
provided. If no filename list was passed, all Archive::Tar::File
objects in the current Tar object are returned.
Please refer to the Archive::Tar::File
documentation on how to
handle these objects.
$tar->get_content( $file )
Return the content of the named file.
$tar->replace_content( $file, $content )
Make the string $content be the content for the file named $file.
$tar->rename( $file, $new_name )
Rename the file of the in-memory archive to $new_name.
Note that you must specify a Unix path for $new_name, since per tar standard, all files in the archive must be Unix paths.
Returns true on success and false on failure.
$tar->chmod( $file, $mode )
Change mode of $file to $mode.
Returns true on success and false on failure.
$tar->chown( $file, $uname [, $gname] )
Change owner $file to $uname and $gname.
Returns true on success and false on failure.
$tar->remove (@filenamelist)
Removes any entries with names matching any of the given filenames
from the in-memory archive. Returns a list of Archive::Tar::File
objects that remain.
$tar->clear
clear
clears the current in-memory archive. This effectively gives
you a 'blank' object, ready to be filled again. Note that clear
only has effect on the object, not the underlying tarfile.
$tar->write ( [$file, $compressed, $prefix] )
Write the in-memory archive to disk. The first argument can either be the name of a file or a reference to an already open filehandle (a GLOB reference).
The second argument is used to indicate compression. You can either
compress using gzip
or bzip2
. If you pass a digit, it's assumed
to be the gzip
compression level (between 1 and 9), but the use of
constants is preferred:
- # write a gzip compressed file
- $tar->write( 'out.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP );
- # write a bzip compressed file
- $tar->write( 'out.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP );
Note that when you pass in a filehandle, the compression argument
is ignored, as all files are printed verbatim to your filehandle.
If you wish to enable compression with filehandles, use an
IO::Zlib
or IO::Compress::Bzip2
filehandle instead.
The third argument is an optional prefix. All files will be tucked away in the directory you specify as prefix. So if you have files 'a' and 'b' in your archive, and you specify 'foo' as prefix, they will be written to the archive as 'foo/a' and 'foo/b'.
If no arguments are given, write
returns the entire formatted
archive as a string, which could be useful if you'd like to stuff the
archive into a socket or a pipe to gzip or something.
$tar->add_files( @filenamelist )
Takes a list of filenames and adds them to the in-memory archive.
The path to the file is automatically converted to a Unix like equivalent for use in the archive, and, if on MacOS, the file's modification time is converted from the MacOS epoch to the Unix epoch. So tar archives created on MacOS with Archive::Tar can be read both with tar on Unix and applications like suntar or Stuffit Expander on MacOS.
Be aware that the file's type/creator and resource fork will be lost, which is usually what you want in cross-platform archives.
Instead of a filename, you can also pass it an existing Archive::Tar::File
object from, for example, another archive. The object will be clone, and
effectively be a copy of the original, not an alias.
Returns a list of Archive::Tar::File
objects that were just added.
$tar->add_data ( $filename, $data, [$opthashref] )
Takes a filename, a scalar full of data and optionally a reference to a hash with specific options.
Will add a file to the in-memory archive, with name $filename
and
content $data
. Specific properties can be set using $opthashref
.
The following list of properties is supported: name, size, mtime
(last modified date), mode, uid, gid, linkname, uname, gname,
devmajor, devminor, prefix, type. (On MacOS, the file's path and
modification times are converted to Unix equivalents.)
Valid values for the file type are the following constants defined by Archive::Tar::Constant:
- FILE
Regular file.
- HARDLINK
- SYMLINK
Hard and symbolic ("soft") links; linkname should specify target.
- CHARDEV
- BLOCKDEV
Character and block devices. devmajor and devminor should specify the major and minor device numbers.
- DIR
Directory.
- FIFO
FIFO (named pipe).
- SOCKET
Socket.
Returns the Archive::Tar::File
object that was just added, or
undef
on failure.
$tar->error( [$BOOL] )
Returns the current error string (usually, the last error reported).
If a true value was specified, it will give the Carp::longmess
equivalent of the error, in effect giving you a stacktrace.
For backwards compatibility, this error is also available as
$Archive::Tar::error
although it is much recommended you use the
method call instead.
$tar->setcwd( $cwd );
Archive::Tar
needs to know the current directory, and it will run
Cwd::cwd()
every time it extracts a relative entry from the
tarfile and saves it in the file system. (As of version 1.30, however,
Archive::Tar
will use the speed optimization described below
automatically, so it's only relevant if you're using extract_file()
).
Since Archive::Tar
doesn't change the current directory internally
while it is extracting the items in a tarball, all calls to Cwd::cwd()
can be avoided if we can guarantee that the current directory doesn't
get changed externally.
To use this performance boost, set the current directory via
- use Cwd;
- $tar->setcwd( cwd() );
once before calling a function like extract_file
and
Archive::Tar
will use the current directory setting from then on
and won't call Cwd::cwd()
internally.
To switch back to the default behaviour, use
- $tar->setcwd( undef );
and Archive::Tar
will call Cwd::cwd()
internally again.
If you're using Archive::Tar
's extract()
method, setcwd()
will
be called for you.
Class Methods
Archive::Tar->create_archive($file, $compressed, @filelist)
Creates a tar file from the list of files provided. The first argument can either be the name of the tar file to create or a reference to an open file handle (e.g. a GLOB reference).
The second argument is used to indicate compression. You can either
compress using gzip
or bzip2
. If you pass a digit, it's assumed
to be the gzip
compression level (between 1 and 9), but the use of
constants is preferred:
- # write a gzip compressed file
- Archive::Tar->create_archive( 'out.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP, @filelist );
- # write a bzip compressed file
- Archive::Tar->create_archive( 'out.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP, @filelist );
Note that when you pass in a filehandle, the compression argument
is ignored, as all files are printed verbatim to your filehandle.
If you wish to enable compression with filehandles, use an
IO::Zlib
or IO::Compress::Bzip2
filehandle instead.
The remaining arguments list the files to be included in the tar file. These files must all exist. Any files which don't exist or can't be read are silently ignored.
If the archive creation fails for any reason, create_archive
will
return false. Please use the error
method to find the cause of the
failure.
Note that this method does not write on the fly
as it were; it
still reads all the files into memory before writing out the archive.
Consult the FAQ below if this is a problem.
Archive::Tar->iter( $filename, [ $compressed, {opt => $val} ] )
Returns an iterator function that reads the tar file without loading
it all in memory. Each time the function is called it will return the
next file in the tarball. The files are returned as
Archive::Tar::File
objects. The iterator function returns the
empty list once it has exhausted the files contained.
The second argument can be a hash reference with options, which are
identical to the arguments passed to read()
.
Example usage:
Archive::Tar->list_archive($file, $compressed, [\@properties])
Returns a list of the names of all the files in the archive. The first argument can either be the name of the tar file to list or a reference to an open file handle (e.g. a GLOB reference).
If list_archive()
is passed an array reference as its third
argument it returns a list of hash references containing the requested
properties of each file. The following list of properties is
supported: full_path, name, size, mtime (last modified date), mode,
uid, gid, linkname, uname, gname, devmajor, devminor, prefix, type.
See Archive::Tar::File
for details about supported properties.
Passing an array reference containing only one element, 'name', is special cased to return a list of names rather than a list of hash references.
Archive::Tar->extract_archive($file, $compressed)
Extracts the contents of the tar file. The first argument can either be the name of the tar file to create or a reference to an open file handle (e.g. a GLOB reference). All relative paths in the tar file will be created underneath the current working directory.
extract_archive
will return a list of files it extracted.
If the archive extraction fails for any reason, extract_archive
will return false. Please use the error
method to find the cause
of the failure.
$bool = Archive::Tar->has_io_string
Returns true if we currently have IO::String
support loaded.
Either IO::String
or perlio
support is needed to support writing
stringified archives. Currently, perlio
is the preferred method, if
available.
See the GLOBAL VARIABLES
section to see how to change this preference.
$bool = Archive::Tar->has_perlio
Returns true if we currently have perlio
support loaded.
This requires perl-5.8
or higher, compiled with perlio
Either IO::String
or perlio
support is needed to support writing
stringified archives. Currently, perlio
is the preferred method, if
available.
See the GLOBAL VARIABLES
section to see how to change this preference.
$bool = Archive::Tar->has_zlib_support
Returns true if Archive::Tar
can extract zlib
compressed archives
$bool = Archive::Tar->has_bzip2_support
Returns true if Archive::Tar
can extract bzip2
compressed archives
Archive::Tar->can_handle_compressed_files
A simple checking routine, which will return true if Archive::Tar
is able to uncompress compressed archives on the fly with IO::Zlib
and IO::Compress::Bzip2
or false if not both are installed.
You can use this as a shortcut to determine whether Archive::Tar
will do what you think before passing compressed archives to its
read
method.
GLOBAL VARIABLES
$Archive::Tar::FOLLOW_SYMLINK
Set this variable to 1
to make Archive::Tar
effectively make a
copy of the file when extracting. Default is
, which
means the symlink stays intact. Of course, you will have to pack the
file linked to as well.
This option is checked when you write out the tarfile using write
or create_archive
.
This works just like /bin/tar
's -h
option.
$Archive::Tar::CHOWN
By default, Archive::Tar
will try to chown
your files if it is
able to. In some cases, this may not be desired. In that case, set
this variable to
to disable
chown
-ing, even if it were
possible.
The default is 1
.
$Archive::Tar::CHMOD
By default, Archive::Tar
will try to chmod
your files to
whatever mode was specified for the particular file in the archive.
In some cases, this may not be desired. In that case, set this
variable to
to disable
chmod
-ing.
The default is 1
.
$Archive::Tar::SAME_PERMISSIONS
When, $Archive::Tar::CHMOD
is enabled, this setting controls whether
the permissions on files from the archive are used without modification
of if they are filtered by removing any setid bits and applying the
current umask.
The default is 1
for the root user and
for normal users.
$Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX
By default, Archive::Tar
will try to put paths that are over
100 characters in the prefix
field of your tar header, as
defined per POSIX-standard. However, some (older) tar programs
do not implement this spec. To retain compatibility with these older
or non-POSIX compliant versions, you can set the $DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX
variable to a true value, and Archive::Tar
will use an alternate
way of dealing with paths over 100 characters by using the
GNU Extended Header
feature.
Note that clients who do not support the GNU Extended Header
feature will not be able to read these archives. Such clients include
tars on Solaris
, Irix
and AIX
.
The default is
.
$Archive::Tar::DEBUG
Set this variable to 1
to always get the Carp::longmess
output
of the warnings, instead of the regular carp
. This is the same
message you would get by doing:
- $tar->error(1);
Defaults to
.
$Archive::Tar::WARN
Set this variable to
if you do not want any warnings printed.
Personally I recommend against doing this, but people asked for the
option. Also, be advised that this is of course not threadsafe.
Defaults to 1
.
$Archive::Tar::error
Holds the last reported error. Kept for historical reasons, but its
use is very much discouraged. Use the error()
method instead:
Note that in older versions of this module, the error()
method
would return an effectively global value even when called an instance
method as above. This has since been fixed, and multiple instances of
Archive::Tar
now have separate error strings.
$Archive::Tar::INSECURE_EXTRACT_MODE
This variable indicates whether Archive::Tar
should allow
files to be extracted outside their current working directory.
Allowing this could have security implications, as a malicious tar archive could alter or replace any file the extracting user has permissions to. Therefor, the default is to not allow insecure extractions.
If you trust the archive, or have other reasons to allow the
archive to write files outside your current working directory,
set this variable to true
.
Note that this is a backwards incompatible change from version
1.36
and before.
$Archive::Tar::HAS_PERLIO
This variable holds a boolean indicating if we currently have
perlio
support loaded. This will be enabled for any perl
greater than 5.8
compiled with perlio
.
If you feel strongly about disabling it, set this variable to
false
. Note that you will then need IO::String
installed
to support writing stringified archives.
Don't change this variable unless you really know what you're doing.
$Archive::Tar::HAS_IO_STRING
This variable holds a boolean indicating if we currently have
IO::String
support loaded. This will be enabled for any perl
that has a loadable IO::String
module.
If you feel strongly about disabling it, set this variable to
false
. Note that you will then need perlio
support from
your perl to be able to write stringified archives.
Don't change this variable unless you really know what you're doing.
$Archive::Tar::ZERO_PAD_NUMBERS
This variable holds a boolean indicating if we will create
zero padded numbers for size
, mtime
and checksum
.
The default is
, indicating that we will create space padded
numbers. Added for compatibility with
busybox
implementations.
Tuning the way RESOLVE_SYMLINK will works
- You can tune the behaviour by setting the $Archive::Tar::RESOLVE_SYMLINK variable,
- or $ENV{PERL5_AT_RESOLVE_SYMLINK} before loading the module Archive::Tar.
- Values can be one of the following:
- none
- Disable this mechanism and failed as it was in previous version (<1.88)
- speed (default)
- If you prefer speed
- this will read again the whole archive using read() so all entries
- will be available
- memory
- If you prefer memory
- Limitation
- It won't work for terminal, pipe or sockets or every non seekable source.
FAQ
- What's the minimum perl version required to run Archive::Tar?
You will need perl version 5.005_03 or newer.
- Isn't Archive::Tar slow?
Yes it is. It's pure perl, so it's a lot slower then your
/bin/tar
However, it's very portable. If speed is an issue, consider using/bin/tar
instead. - Isn't Archive::Tar heavier on memory than /bin/tar?
Yes it is, see previous answer. Since
Compress::Zlib
and thereforeIO::Zlib
doesn't supportseek
on their filehandles, there is little choice but to read the archive into memory. This is ok if you want to do in-memory manipulation of the archive.If you just want to extract, use the
extract_archive
class method instead. It will optimize and write to disk immediately.Another option is to use the
iter
class method to iterate over the files in the tarball without reading them all in memory at once. - Can you lazy-load data instead?
In some cases, yes. You can use the
iter
class method to iterate over the files in the tarball without reading them all in memory at once. - How much memory will an X kb tar file need?
Probably more than X kb, since it will all be read into memory. If this is a problem, and you don't need to do in memory manipulation of the archive, consider using the
iter
class method, or/bin/tar
instead. - What do you do with unsupported filetypes in an archive?
Unix
has a few filetypes that aren't supported on other platforms, likeWin32
. If we encounter ahardlink
orsymlink
we'll just try to make a copy of the original file, rather than throwing an error.This does require you to read the entire archive in to memory first, since otherwise we wouldn't know what data to fill the copy with. (This means that you cannot use the class methods, including
iter
on archives that have incompatible filetypes and still expect things to work).For other filetypes, like
chardevs
andblockdevs
we'll warn that the extraction of this particular item didn't work. - I'm using WinZip, or some other non-POSIX client, and files are not being extracted properly!
By default,
Archive::Tar
is in a completely POSIX-compatible mode, which uses the POSIX-specification oftar
to store files. For paths greater than 100 characters, this is done using thePOSIX header prefix
. Non-POSIX-compatible clients may not support this part of the specification, and may only support theGNU Extended Header
functionality. To facilitate those clients, you can set the$Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX
variable totrue
. See theGLOBAL VARIABLES
section for details on this variable.Note that GNU tar earlier than version 1.14 does not cope well with the
POSIX header prefix
. If you use such a version, consider setting the$Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX
variable totrue
. - How do I extract only files that have property X from an archive?
Sometimes, you might not wish to extract a complete archive, just the files that are relevant to you, based on some criteria.
You can do this by filtering a list of
Archive::Tar::File
objects based on your criteria. For example, to extract only files that have the stringfoo
in their title, you would use:- $tar->extract(
- grep { $_->full_path =~ /foo/ } $tar->get_files
- );
This way, you can filter on any attribute of the files in the archive. Consult the
Archive::Tar::File
documentation on how to use these objects. - How do I access .tar.Z files?
The
Archive::Tar
module can optionally useCompress::Zlib
(via theIO::Zlib
module) to access tar files that have been compressed withgzip
. Unfortunately tar files compressed with the Unixcompress
utility cannot be read byCompress::Zlib
and so cannot be directly accesses byArchive::Tar
.If the
uncompress
orgunzip
programs are available, you can use one of these workarounds to read.tar.Z
files fromArchive::Tar
Firstly with
uncompress
and this with
gunzip
Similarly, if the
compress
program is available, you can use this to write a.tar.Z
file - How do I handle Unicode strings?
Archive::Tar
uses byte semantics for any files it reads from or writes to disk. This is not a problem if you only deal with files and never look at their content or work solely with byte strings. But if you use Unicode strings with character semantics, some additional steps need to be taken.For example, if you add a Unicode string like
- # Problem
- $tar->add_data('file.txt', "Euro: \x{20AC}");
then there will be a problem later when the tarfile gets written out to disk via
$tar-
write()>:- Wide character in print at .../Archive/Tar.pm line 1014.
The data was added as a Unicode string and when writing it out to disk, the
:utf8
line discipline wasn't set byArchive::Tar
, so Perl tried to convert the string to ISO-8859 and failed. The written file now contains garbage.For this reason, Unicode strings need to be converted to UTF-8-encoded bytestrings before they are handed off to
add_data()
:A opposite problem occurs if you extract a UTF8-encoded file from a tarball. Using
get_content()
on theArchive::Tar::File
object will return its content as a bytestring, not as a Unicode string.If you want it to be a Unicode string (because you want character semantics with operations like regular expression matching), you need to decode the UTF8-encoded content and have Perl convert it into a Unicode string:
There is no easy way to provide this functionality in
Archive::Tar
, because a tarball can contain many files, and each of which could be encoded in a different way.
CAVEATS
The AIX tar does not fill all unused space in the tar archive with 0x00.
This sometimes leads to warning messages from Archive::Tar
.
- Invalid header block at offset nnn
A fix for that problem is scheduled to be released in the following levels of AIX, all of which should be coming out in the 4th quarter of 2009:
- AIX 5.3 TL7 SP10
- AIX 5.3 TL8 SP8
- AIX 5.3 TL9 SP5
- AIX 5.3 TL10 SP2
- AIX 6.1 TL0 SP11
- AIX 6.1 TL1 SP7
- AIX 6.1 TL2 SP6
- AIX 6.1 TL3 SP3
The IBM APAR number for this problem is IZ50240 (Reported component ID: 5765G0300 / AIX 5.3). It is possible to get an ifix for that problem. If you need an ifix please contact your local IBM AIX support.
TODO
- Check if passed in handles are open for read/write
Currently I don't know of any portable pure perl way to do this. Suggestions welcome.
- Allow archives to be passed in as string
Currently, we only allow opened filehandles or filenames, but not strings. The internals would need some reworking to facilitate stringified archives.
- Facilitate processing an opened filehandle of a compressed archive
Currently, we only support this if the filehandle is an IO::Zlib object. Environments, like apache, will present you with an opened filehandle to an uploaded file, which might be a compressed archive.
SEE ALSO
- The GNU tar specification
- The PAX format specification
The specification which tar derives from;
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/utilities/pax.html
- A comparison of GNU and POSIX tar standards;
http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/tar/tar_114.html
- GNU tar intends to switch to POSIX compatibility
GNU Tar authors have expressed their intention to become completely POSIX-compatible;
http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_node/Formats.html
- A Comparison between various tar implementations
Lists known issues and incompatibilities;
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/utils/archivers/star/README.otherbugs
AUTHOR
This module by Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>.
Please reports bugs to <bug-archive-tar@rt.cpan.org>.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Sean Burke, Chris Nandor, Chip Salzenberg, Tim Heaney, Gisle Aas, Rainer Tammer and especially Andrew Savige for their help and suggestions.
COPYRIGHT
This module is copyright (c) 2002 - 2009 Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>. All rights reserved.
This library is free software; you may redistribute and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
- Object Methods
- Archive::Tar->new( [$file, $compressed] )
- $tar->read ( $filename|$handle, [$compressed, {opt => 'val'}] )
- $tar->contains_file( $filename )
- $tar->extract( [@filenames] )
- $tar->extract_file( $file, [$extract_path] )
- $tar->list_files( [\@properties] )
- $tar->get_files( [@filenames] )
- $tar->get_content( $file )
- $tar->replace_content( $file, $content )
- $tar->rename( $file, $new_name )
- $tar->chmod( $file, $mode )
- $tar->chown( $file, $uname [, $gname] )
- $tar->remove (@filenamelist)
- $tar->clear
- $tar->write ( [$file, $compressed, $prefix] )
- $tar->add_files( @filenamelist )
- $tar->add_data ( $filename, $data, [$opthashref] )
- $tar->error( [$BOOL] )
- $tar->setcwd( $cwd );
- Class Methods
- Archive::Tar->create_archive($file, $compressed, @filelist)
- Archive::Tar->iter( $filename, [ $compressed, {opt => $val} ] )
- Archive::Tar->list_archive($file, $compressed, [\@properties])
- Archive::Tar->extract_archive($file, $compressed)
- $bool = Archive::Tar->has_io_string
- $bool = Archive::Tar->has_perlio
- $bool = Archive::Tar->has_zlib_support
- $bool = Archive::Tar->has_bzip2_support
- Archive::Tar->can_handle_compressed_files
- GLOBAL VARIABLES
- $Archive::Tar::FOLLOW_SYMLINK
- $Archive::Tar::CHOWN
- $Archive::Tar::CHMOD
- $Archive::Tar::SAME_PERMISSIONS
- $Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX
- $Archive::Tar::DEBUG
- $Archive::Tar::WARN
- $Archive::Tar::error
- $Archive::Tar::INSECURE_EXTRACT_MODE
- $Archive::Tar::HAS_PERLIO
- $Archive::Tar::HAS_IO_STRING
- $Archive::Tar::ZERO_PAD_NUMBERS
- Tuning the way RESOLVE_SYMLINK will works
- FAQ
- CAVEATS
- TODO
- SEE ALSO
- AUTHOR
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- COPYRIGHT