Re: Reminder: new uploads ftp.gnome.org will have .tar.xz and .tar.bz2 (May 25th)

[Javier Jardón <jjardon gnome org>]

On 21 May 2011 16:00, Olav Vitters <olav vitters nl> wrote:
...
> Maybe even:
>  AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.11 no-dist-gzip dist-xz tar-ustar])
> or:
>  AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.11 no-dist-gzip dist-xz tar-pax])
>
> This as the current tar length limits can result problems (double sized
> tarballs; ftpadmin detects this though).
>
> There is a dicussion about this on:
>  https://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals/ModernAutotools
>
> IMO requiring automake 1.11.1 is fine. Jhbuild will install that for you
> anyway.
>
> I don't have any opinion about which tar format is best to switch to:
>  - tar-ustar
>   still some limitations, possibly better supported?
>  - tar-pax
>   no limitations, POSIX standard
>   Python only supports PAX since 2.6 (tarfile.py module; jhbuild just
>   calls tar program, so is not impacted by this).

I'd use tar-pax

tar-pax is defined by the POSIX.1-2001 specification, see "posix" in
[1], and It's the unique format without any restrictions (see the
table in [1]). Indeed future version of tar will switch to posix by
default.

About portability,  POSIX.1-2001 is supported [2] since Solaris 10,
that has been out for 5 years [3], so I guess if Solaris supports PAX
for 5+ years, then everyone does :P

[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html#Formats
[2] http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19082-01/819-2252/6n4i8rtt8/index.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(operating_system)#Version_history


-- 
Javier Jardón Cabezas