#80 Creating tar from tar files does break content

[Massimo B.]

Creating a tar from a list of file where some are also tar files, then the resulting archive will not have the tar files but their content. However tar -cf does it correct, only xarchiver has the issue, no matter if bz2 or xz:

$ file *
cache.ext4.tar.a: POSIX tar archive (GNU)
kernel.img: data
system.ext4.tar: empty

$ tar -tf cache.ext4.tar.a
cache/
cache/lost+found/
cache/recovery/
cache/recovery/log
cache/recovery/last_log
cache/dalvik-cache/
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@core.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@core-junit.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@bouncycastle.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@ext.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@framework.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@telephony-common.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@mms-common.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@android.policy.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@services.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@apache-xml.jar@classes.dex

$ file *
cache.ext4.tar.a: POSIX tar archive (GNU)
kernel.img: data
system.ext4.tar: empty
test2.tar.bz2: bzip2 compressed data, block size = 900k
xarchiver_created.tar.bz2: bzip2 compressed data, block size = 900k

$ tar -tf test2.tar.bz2
cache.ext4.tar.a
kernel.img
system.ext4.tar

$ tar -tf xarchiver_created.tar.bz2
cache/
cache/lost+found/
cache/recovery/
cache/recovery/log
cache/recovery/last_log
cache/dalvik-cache/
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@core.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@core-junit.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@bouncycastle.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@ext.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@framework.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@telephony-common.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@mms-common.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@android.policy.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@services.jar@classes.dex
cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@apache-xml.jar@classes.dex

[Teo Box]

Hi,
I'll try to reproduce your issue, with no luck !
with the same test-case I've got correct archive (tar inside tar)

maybe my test case is wrong or I miss something.

btw, here is my test case:

$find test
test
test/b
test/b/somecode.py
test/b/DarkCleanLinux.tar.gz
test/Lyrics.html
test/rdesktop-1.7.0.tar.gz
test/somecode.py
test/a
test/a/somecode.py
test/a/DarkCleanLinux.tar.gz

right clic on test folder, create archive <tar.bz2> named test.tar.bz2

$file test.tar.bz2
test.tar.bz2: bzip2 compressed data, block size = 900k

$tar tf test.tar.bz2
test/b/somecode.py
test/b/DarkCleanLinux.tar.gz
test/Lyrics.html
test/rdesktop-1.7.0.tar.gz
test/somecode.py
test/a/somecode.py
test/a/DarkCleanLinux.tar.gz

Archive content look fine, which version of xarchiver are you using ?
could you retry with the latest version.

Best regards

TB

[Massimo B.]

I'm using 0.5.3-r1 on Gentoo.

Creating test data:

$ for num in {1..5};do dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1k count=1 > $num.data;done

$ for num in {1..3};do tar cvjf $num.data.bz2 $num.data;done

$ file *
1.data: data
1.data.bz2: bzip2 compressed data, block size = 900k
2.data: data
2.data.bz2: bzip2 compressed data, block size = 900k
3.data: data
3.data.bz2: bzip2 compressed data, block size = 900k
4.data: data
5.data: data

$ tar tvjf 1.data.bz2
-rw-r--r-- mburcher/mburcher 1024 2014-09-18 12:52 1.data

Creating a test.bz2 by selecting all files in Xfce Thunar and calling Create Archive.

$ file test.bz2
test.bz2: bzip2 compressed data, block size = 900k

$ tar tvjf test.bz2
tar: This does not look like a tar archive
tar: Skipping to next header
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

Opening test.bz2 with xarchiver shows a single file "test".

[Teo Box]

Hi,

I see, i see !!

We have release several patch since the 0.5.3 is out, concerning tar and other format.
you can find these fix at

https://sourceforge.net/p/xarchiver/patches/

Look from the patch #19
--accept-pre-posix-tar-files.patch--

The 0.5.4 should be released soon, and I think, should resolve your issue.

You can retry with all these patch applied and keep us informed.

Best regards
TB

[Massimo B.]

With 0.5.4 released I'm going to trigger the update in the Gentoo tree.

[Steven]

I've applied every valid patch I could find to a github repo of xarchiver, if it's any use to you guys? The number of patches was getting too big!

https://github.com/stevenhoneyman/xarchiver

[Giuseppe Torelli]

Hi, I released 0.5.4 with a patch for this bug. Let me know if the bug still occurs, thank you.