[tz] [PROPOSED] Distribute tarballs in ustar rather than gnu form
Paul Eggert
eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Mon Dec 13 09:03:22 UTC 2021
It recently came to my attention that tzdb tarballs are not
generated in standard POSIX ustar format, but instead use a
trivially different but nonstandard format. Fix this by
switching to the standard format.
* Makefile (GNUTARFLAGS): Add --format=ustar.
* NEWS: Document the change.
---
Makefile | 3 ++-
NEWS | 10 ++++++++++
2 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index c89c1be..fd312d9 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -466,7 +466,8 @@ OK_LINE= '^'$(OK_CHAR)'*$$'
# Flags to give 'tar' when making a distribution.
# Try to use flags appropriate for GNU tar.
-GNUTARFLAGS= --numeric-owner --owner=0 --group=0 --mode=go+u,go-w --sort=name
+GNUTARFLAGS= --format=ustar --numeric-owner --owner=0 --group=0 \
+ --mode=go+u,go-w --sort=name
TARFLAGS= `if tar $(GNUTARFLAGS) --version >/dev/null 2>&1; \
then echo $(GNUTARFLAGS); \
else :; \
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 572a161..edb9a1d 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -20,6 +20,16 @@ Unreleased, experimental changes
reader no longer mistakenly attempts to parse a version 1 TZIf
file header as a TZ string.
+ Changes to build procedure
+
+ Distribution tarballs now use standard POSIX.1-1988 ustar format
+ instead of GNU format. Although the formats are almost identical
+ for these tarballs, ustar headers' magic fields contain "ustar"
+ instead of "ustar ", and their version fields contain "00" instead
+ of " ". For details about ustar format, please see
+ "pax - portable archive interchange", IEEE Std 1003.1-2017,
+ <https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/pax.html#tag_20_92_13_06>.
+
Changes affecting documentation and commentary
Rename CONTRIBUTING to CONTRIBUTING.md and use Markdown format.
--
2.32.0
More information about the tz
mailing list