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tribbloid
Asked: 2017-04-20 20:27:29 +0800 CST

Why the sequence of parameter may impact tar's execution?

  • 772

Example:

$> tar -vxf something.tar
(normal output)
...

$> tar -xfv something.tar

tar: v: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

This is absurd, is it a bug or oversight in tar?

tar

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    There's nothing particularly absurd. tar supports multiple option styles, and the -f option expects to be followed by the filename. If you use the old option style, tar is a bit more lenient:

    $ tar xfv foo.tar
foo
$ tar -xfv foo.tar
tar: v: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
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