[tex-live] Misplaced context files

George N. White III gnwiii at gmail.com
Thu Sep 3 14:18:27 CEST 2009


2009/9/2 Akira Kakuto <kakuto at fuk.kindai.ac.jp>:
> Hi Karl,
>
>> The question is, why can tar.exe read the current pgf.tar
>> (after xzdec), but not longname.tar?  They were both created in the same
>> way, with --format=ustar.  That is, I assume tar.exe can read the
>> current pgf.tar since no one has complained about it.
>
> In TL '09, pgf.tar does not contain longer names than 100, because
> the top directories are subdirectoies of $TEXMF.
>
>> TL'08 used the GNU tar format.  That didn't work with BSD-derived tars,
>> e.g., on a BSD or Solaris system.  That was the problem with pgf.tar.
>
> You can demand to use gnu tar.

I think newer libarchive-based bsdtar should be fine.  Ubuntu 9.04 has:

$ bsdtar --version
bsdtar 2.4.17 - libarchive 2.4.17

Set down the requirements and build a list of the tar programs that have been
found to work on various platforms (and explain how to tell tlmgr which
one you want it to use).

>> I have no way of knowing what tar.exe understands.  I would have thought
>> it should understand ustar  That's why we picked it!  Help?
>
> I only know the relevant 8 bytes in header:
> (1) oldgnu in TL'08      "ustar  " (7 characters and a null)
> (2) new ustar in TL'09   "ustar" (5 characters and a null) + "00"
>    (2 characters without null)
>
> Longer names than 100 are supported in both cases, and
> "tar.exe" can handle the case (1).
>
>>     or search for a new tar.

GnuWin32 has a libarchive bsdtar with installer:

<http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/libarchive.htm>


C:\>bsdtar --version

bsdtar 2.4.12 - libarchive 2.4.12

works for me extracting a tar file with long names that fails
using the tar.exe from TL2009, but bsdtar fails when I try to
create a .tar archive from the same tree on Win32.   The
current stable version is 2.7.1.is at:

<http://code.google.com/p/libarchive/>


>> We can probably find or compile a different tar for Windows easily
>> enough, like the one Vladimir found (below), but I thought that the
>> tar.exe you provided had certain features which you needed.  The details
>> are lost in my mind, though.  Am I just misremembering?
>
> No, I don't have any trouble if TeX Live uses a new tar.
> I will use the new tar if someone ports win32 native one of
> 1.22. I think Vladimir doesn't yet find a candidate.

<http://drupal.org/node/483110> recommends the tar.exe from mingw:

<http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/> has a tar-1.22, presumably
based on GNU tar.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia


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