


Archive::Tar(3p) Perl Programmers Reference GuideArchive::Tar(3p)


NAME
       Archive::Tar - module for manipulations of tar archives

SYNOPSIS
           use Archive::Tar;
           my $tar = Archive::Tar->new;

           $tar->read('origin.tgz');
           $tar->extract();

           $tar->add_files('file/foo.pl', 'docs/README');
           $tar->add_data('file/baz.txt', 'This is the contents now');

           $tar->rename('oldname', 'new/file/name');

           $tar->write('files.tar');                   # plain tar
           $tar->write('files.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP);    # gzip compressed
           $tar->write('files.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP);    # bzip2 compressed

DESCRIPTION
       Archive::Tar provides an object oriented mechanism for
       handling tar files.  It provides class methods for quick
       and easy files handling while also allowing for the
       creation of tar file objects for custom manipulation.  If
       you have the IO::Zlib module installed, Archive::Tar will
       also support compressed or gzipped tar files.

       An object of class Archive::Tar represents a .tar(.gz)
       archive full of files and things.

Object Methods
   Archive::Tar->new( [$file, $compressed] )
       Returns a new Tar object. If given any arguments, "new()"
       calls the "read()" method automatically, passing on the
       arguments provided to the "read()" method.

       If "new()" is invoked with arguments and the "read()"
       method fails for any reason, "new()" returns undef.

   $tar->read ( $filename|$handle, [$compressed, {opt => 'val'}]
       )
       Read the given tar file into memory.  The first argument
       can either be the name of a file or a reference to an
       already open filehandle (or an IO::Zlib object if it's
       compressed)

       The "read" will replace any previous content in $tar!

       The second argument may be considered optional, but
       remains for backwards compatibility. Archive::Tar now
       looks at the file magic to determine what class should be
       used to open the file and will transparently Do The Right
       Thing.




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       Archive::Tar will warn if you try to pass a bzip2
       compressed file and the IO::Zlib / IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2
       modules are not available and simply return.

       Note that you can currently not pass a "gzip" compressed
       filehandle, which is not opened with "IO::Zlib", a "bzip2"
       compressed filehandle, which is not opened with
       "IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2", nor a string containing the
       full archive information (either compressed or
       uncompressed). These are worth while features, but not
       currently implemented. See the "TODO" section.

       The third argument can be a hash reference with options.
       Note that all options are case-sensitive.

       limit
           Do not read more than "limit" files. This is useful if
           you have very big archives, and are only interested in
           the first few files.

       filter
           Can be set to a regular expression.  Only files with
           names that match the expression will be read.

       extract
           If set to true, immediately extract entries when
           reading them. This gives you the same memory break as
           the "extract_archive" function.  Note however that
           entries will not be read into memory, but written
           straight to disk. This means no "Archive::Tar::File"
           objects are created for you to inspect.

       All files are stored internally as "Archive::Tar::File"
       objects.  Please consult the Archive::Tar::File
       documentation for details.

       Returns the number of files read in scalar context, and a
       list of "Archive::Tar::File" objects in list context.

   $tar->contains_file( $filename )
       Check if the archive contains a certain file.  It will
       return true if the file is in the archive, false
       otherwise.

       Note however, that this function does an exact match using
       "eq" on the full path. So it cannot compensate for case-
       insensitive file- systems or compare 2 paths to see if
       they would point to the same underlying file.

   $tar->extract( [@filenames] )
       Write files whose names are equivalent to any of the names
       in @filenames to disk, creating subdirectories as
       necessary. This might not work too well under VMS.  Under
       MacPerl, the file's modification time will be converted to



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       the MacOS zero of time, and appropriate conversions will
       be done to the path.  However, the length of each element
       of the path is not inspected to see whether it's longer
       than MacOS currently allows (32 characters).

       If "extract" is called without a list of file names, the
       entire contents of the archive are extracted.

       Returns a list of filenames extracted.

   $tar->extract_file( $file, [$extract_path] )
       Write an entry, whose name is equivalent to the file name
       provided to disk. Optionally takes a second parameter,
       which is the full native path (including filename) the
       entry will be written to.

       For example:

           $tar->extract_file( 'name/in/archive', 'name/i/want/to/give/it' );

           $tar->extract_file( $at_file_object,   'name/i/want/to/give/it' );

       Returns true on success, false on failure.

   $tar->list_files( [\@properties] )
       Returns a list of the names of all the files in the
       archive.

       If "list_files()" is passed an array reference as its
       first argument it returns a list of hash references
       containing the requested properties of each file.  The
       following list of properties is supported: name, size,
       mtime (last modified date), mode, uid, gid, linkname,
       uname, gname, devmajor, devminor, prefix.

       Passing an array reference containing only one element,
       'name', is special cased to return a list of names rather
       than a list of hash references, making it equivalent to
       calling "list_files" without arguments.

   $tar->get_files( [@filenames] )
       Returns the "Archive::Tar::File" objects matching the
       filenames provided. If no filename list was passed, all
       "Archive::Tar::File" objects in the current Tar object are
       returned.

       Please refer to the "Archive::Tar::File" documentation on
       how to handle these objects.

   $tar->get_content( $file )
       Return the content of the named file.

   $tar->replace_content( $file, $content )
       Make the string $content be the content for the file named



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       $file.

   $tar->rename( $file, $new_name )
       Rename the file of the in-memory archive to $new_name.

       Note that you must specify a Unix path for $new_name,
       since per tar standard, all files in the archive must be
       Unix paths.

       Returns true on success and false on failure.

   $tar->remove (@filenamelist)
       Removes any entries with names matching any of the given
       filenames from the in-memory archive. Returns a list of
       "Archive::Tar::File" objects that remain.

   $tar->clear
       "clear" clears the current in-memory archive. This
       effectively gives you a 'blank' object, ready to be filled
       again. Note that "clear" only has effect on the object,
       not the underlying tarfile.

   $tar->write ( [$file, $compressed, $prefix] )
       Write the in-memory archive to disk.  The first argument
       can either be the name of a file or a reference to an
       already open filehandle (a GLOB reference).

       The second argument is used to indicate compression. You
       can either compress using "gzip" or "bzip2". If you pass a
       digit, it's assumed to be the "gzip" compression level
       (between 1 and 9), but the use of constants is prefered:

         # write a gzip compressed file
         $tar->write( 'out.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP );

         # write a bzip compressed file
         $tar->write( 'out.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP );

       Note that when you pass in a filehandle, the compression
       argument is ignored, as all files are printed verbatim to
       your filehandle.  If you wish to enable compression with
       filehandles, use an "IO::Zlib" or "IO::Compress::Bzip2"
       filehandle instead.

       The third argument is an optional prefix. All files will
       be tucked away in the directory you specify as prefix. So
       if you have files 'a' and 'b' in your archive, and you
       specify 'foo' as prefix, they will be written to the
       archive as 'foo/a' and 'foo/b'.

       If no arguments are given, "write" returns the entire
       formatted archive as a string, which could be useful if
       you'd like to stuff the archive into a socket or a pipe to
       gzip or something.



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   $tar->add_files( @filenamelist )
       Takes a list of filenames and adds them to the in-memory
       archive.

       The path to the file is automatically converted to a Unix
       like equivalent for use in the archive, and, if on MacOS,
       the file's modification time is converted from the MacOS
       epoch to the Unix epoch.  So tar archives created on MacOS
       with Archive::Tar can be read both with tar on Unix and
       applications like suntar or Stuffit Expander on MacOS.

       Be aware that the file's type/creator and resource fork
       will be lost, which is usually what you want in cross-
       platform archives.

       Instead of a filename, you can also pass it an existing
       "Archive::Tar::File" object from, for example, another
       archive. The object will be clone, and effectively be a
       copy of the original, not an alias.

       Returns a list of "Archive::Tar::File" objects that were
       just added.

   $tar->add_data ( $filename, $data, [$opthashref] )
       Takes a filename, a scalar full of data and optionally a
       reference to a hash with specific options.

       Will add a file to the in-memory archive, with name
       $filename and content $data. Specific properties can be
       set using $opthashref.  The following list of properties
       is supported: name, size, mtime (last modified date),
       mode, uid, gid, linkname, uname, gname, devmajor,
       devminor, prefix, type.  (On MacOS, the file's path and
       modification times are converted to Unix equivalents.)

       Valid values for the file type are the following constants
       defined in Archive::Tar::Constants:

       FILE
           Regular file.

       HARDLINK
       SYMLINK
           Hard and symbolic ("soft") links; linkname should
           specify target.

       CHARDEV
       BLOCKDEV
           Character and block devices. devmajor and devminor
           should specify the major and minor device numbers.

       DIR Directory.





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       FIFO
           FIFO (named pipe).

       SOCKET
           Socket.

       Returns the "Archive::Tar::File" object that was just
       added, or "undef" on failure.

   $tar->error( [$BOOL] )
       Returns the current errorstring (usually, the last error
       reported).  If a true value was specified, it will give
       the "Carp::longmess" equivalent of the error, in effect
       giving you a stacktrace.

       For backwards compatibility, this error is also available
       as $Archive::Tar::error although it is much recommended
       you use the method call instead.

   $tar->setcwd( $cwd );
       "Archive::Tar" needs to know the current directory, and it
       will run "Cwd::cwd()" every time it extracts a relative
       entry from the tarfile and saves it in the file system.
       (As of version 1.30, however, "Archive::Tar" will use the
       speed optimization described below automatically, so it's
       only relevant if you're using "extract_file()").

       Since "Archive::Tar" doesn't change the current directory
       internally while it is extracting the items in a tarball,
       all calls to "Cwd::cwd()" can be avoided if we can
       guarantee that the current directory doesn't get changed
       externally.

       To use this performance boost, set the current directory
       via

           use Cwd;
           $tar->setcwd( cwd() );

       once before calling a function like "extract_file" and
       "Archive::Tar" will use the current directory setting from
       then on and won't call "Cwd::cwd()" internally.

       To switch back to the default behaviour, use

           $tar->setcwd( undef );

       and "Archive::Tar" will call "Cwd::cwd()" internally
       again.

       If you're using "Archive::Tar"'s "exract()" method,
       "setcwd()" will be called for you.





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Class Methods
   Archive::Tar->create_archive($file, $compressed, @filelist)
       Creates a tar file from the list of files provided.  The
       first argument can either be the name of the tar file to
       create or a reference to an open file handle (e.g. a GLOB
       reference).

       The second argument is used to indicate compression. You
       can either compress using "gzip" or "bzip2". If you pass a
       digit, it's assumed to be the "gzip" compression level
       (between 1 and 9), but the use of constants is prefered:

         # write a gzip compressed file
         Archive::Tar->create_archive( 'out.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP, @filelist );

         # write a bzip compressed file
         Archive::Tar->create_archive( 'out.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP, @filelist );

       Note that when you pass in a filehandle, the compression
       argument is ignored, as all files are printed verbatim to
       your filehandle.  If you wish to enable compression with
       filehandles, use an "IO::Zlib" or "IO::Compress::Bzip2"
       filehandle instead.

       The remaining arguments list the files to be included in
       the tar file.  These files must all exist. Any files which
       don't exist or can't be read are silently ignored.

       If the archive creation fails for any reason,
       "create_archive" will return false. Please use the "error"
       method to find the cause of the failure.

       Note that this method does not write "on the fly" as it
       were; it still reads all the files into memory before
       writing out the archive.  Consult the FAQ below if this is
       a problem.

   Archive::Tar->iter( $filename, [ $compressed, {opt => $val} ]
       )
       Returns an iterator function that reads the tar file
       without loading it all in memory.  Each time the function
       is called it will return the next file in the tarball. The
       files are returned as "Archive::Tar::File" objects. The
       iterator function returns the empty list once it has
       exhausted the the files contained.

       The second argument can be a hash reference with options,
       which are identical to the arguments passed to "read()".

       Example usage:

           my $next = Archive::Tar->iter( "example.tar.gz", 1, {filter => qr/\.pm$/} );

           while( my $f = $next->() ) {



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               print $f->name, "\n";

               $f->extract or warn "Extraction failed";

               # ....
           }

   Archive::Tar->list_archive($file, $compressed, [\@properties])
       Returns a list of the names of all the files in the
       archive.  The first argument can either be the name of the
       tar file to list or a reference to an open file handle
       (e.g. a GLOB reference).

       If "list_archive()" is passed an array reference as its
       third argument it returns a list of hash references
       containing the requested properties of each file.  The
       following list of properties is supported: full_path,
       name, size, mtime (last modified date), mode, uid, gid,
       linkname, uname, gname, devmajor, devminor, prefix.

       See "Archive::Tar::File" for details about supported
       properties.

       Passing an array reference containing only one element,
       'name', is special cased to return a list of names rather
       than a list of hash references.

   Archive::Tar->extract_archive($file, $compressed)
       Extracts the contents of the tar file.  The first argument
       can either be the name of the tar file to create or a
       reference to an open file handle (e.g. a GLOB reference).
       All relative paths in the tar file will be created
       underneath the current working directory.

       "extract_archive" will return a list of files it
       extracted.  If the archive extraction fails for any
       reason, "extract_archive" will return false.  Please use
       the "error" method to find the cause of the failure.

   $bool = Archive::Tar->has_io_string
       Returns true if we currently have "IO::String" support
       loaded.

       Either "IO::String" or "perlio" support is needed to
       support writing stringified archives. Currently, "perlio"
       is the preferred method, if available.

       See the "GLOBAL VARIABLES" section to see how to change
       this preference.

   $bool = Archive::Tar->has_perlio
       Returns true if we currently have "perlio" support loaded.

       This requires "perl-5.8" or higher, compiled with "perlio"



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       Either "IO::String" or "perlio" support is needed to
       support writing stringified archives. Currently, "perlio"
       is the preferred method, if available.

       See the "GLOBAL VARIABLES" section to see how to change
       this preference.

   $bool = Archive::Tar->has_zlib_support
       Returns true if "Archive::Tar" can extract "zlib"
       compressed archives

   $bool = Archive::Tar->has_bzip2_support
       Returns true if "Archive::Tar" can extract "bzip2"
       compressed archives

   Archive::Tar->can_handle_compressed_files
       A simple checking routine, which will return true if
       "Archive::Tar" is able to uncompress compressed archives
       on the fly with "IO::Zlib" and "IO::Compress::Bzip2" or
       false if not both are installed.

       You can use this as a shortcut to determine whether
       "Archive::Tar" will do what you think before passing
       compressed archives to its "read" method.

GLOBAL VARIABLES
   $Archive::Tar::FOLLOW_SYMLINK
       Set this variable to 1 to make "Archive::Tar" effectively
       make a copy of the file when extracting. Default is 0,
       which means the symlink stays intact. Of course, you will
       have to pack the file linked to as well.

       This option is checked when you write out the tarfile
       using "write" or "create_archive".

       This works just like "/bin/tar"'s "-h" option.

   $Archive::Tar::CHOWN
       By default, "Archive::Tar" will try to "chown" your files
       if it is able to. In some cases, this may not be desired.
       In that case, set this variable to 0 to disable
       "chown"-ing, even if it were possible.

       The default is 1.

   $Archive::Tar::CHMOD
       By default, "Archive::Tar" will try to "chmod" your files
       to whatever mode was specified for the particular file in
       the archive.  In some cases, this may not be desired. In
       that case, set this variable to 0 to disable "chmod"-ing.

       The default is 1.





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   $Archive::Tar::SAME_PERMISSIONS
       When, $Archive::Tar::CHMOD is enabled, this setting
       controls whether the permissions on files from the archive
       are used without modification of if they are filtered by
       removing any setid bits and applying the current umask.

       The default is 1 for the root user and 0 for normal users.

   $Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX
       By default, "Archive::Tar" will try to put paths that are
       over 100 characters in the "prefix" field of your tar
       header, as defined per POSIX-standard. However, some
       (older) tar programs do not implement this spec. To retain
       compatibility with these older or non-POSIX compliant
       versions, you can set the $DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX variable to a
       true value, and "Archive::Tar" will use an alternate way
       of dealing with paths over 100 characters by using the
       "GNU Extended Header" feature.

       Note that clients who do not support the "GNU Extended
       Header" feature will not be able to read these archives.
       Such clients include tars on "Solaris", "Irix" and "AIX".

       The default is 0.

   $Archive::Tar::DEBUG
       Set this variable to 1 to always get the "Carp::longmess"
       output of the warnings, instead of the regular "carp".
       This is the same message you would get by doing:

           $tar->error(1);

       Defaults to 0.

   $Archive::Tar::WARN
       Set this variable to 0 if you do not want any warnings
       printed.  Personally I recommend against doing this, but
       people asked for the option. Also, be advised that this is
       of course not threadsafe.

       Defaults to 1.

   $Archive::Tar::error
       Holds the last reported error. Kept for historical
       reasons, but its use is very much discouraged. Use the
       "error()" method instead:

           warn $tar->error unless $tar->extract;

   $Archive::Tar::INSECURE_EXTRACT_MODE
       This variable indicates whether "Archive::Tar" should
       allow files to be extracted outside their current working
       directory.




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       Allowing this could have security implications, as a
       malicious tar archive could alter or replace any file the
       extracting user has permissions to. Therefor, the default
       is to not allow insecure extractions.

       If you trust the archive, or have other reasons to allow
       the archive to write files outside your current working
       directory, set this variable to "true".

       Note that this is a backwards incompatible change from
       version 1.36 and before.

   $Archive::Tar::HAS_PERLIO
       This variable holds a boolean indicating if we currently
       have "perlio" support loaded. This will be enabled for any
       perl greater than 5.8 compiled with "perlio".

       If you feel strongly about disabling it, set this variable
       to "false". Note that you will then need "IO::String"
       installed to support writing stringified archives.

       Don't change this variable unless you really know what
       you're doing.

   $Archive::Tar::HAS_IO_STRING
       This variable holds a boolean indicating if we currently
       have "IO::String" support loaded. This will be enabled for
       any perl that has a loadable "IO::String" module.

       If you feel strongly about disabling it, set this variable
       to "false". Note that you will then need "perlio" support
       from your perl to be able to  write stringified archives.

       Don't change this variable unless you really know what
       you're doing.

FAQ
       What's the minimum perl version required to run
       Archive::Tar?
           You will need perl version 5.005_03 or newer.

       Isn't Archive::Tar slow?
           Yes it is. It's pure perl, so it's a lot slower then
           your "/bin/tar" However, it's very portable. If speed
           is an issue, consider using "/bin/tar" instead.

       Isn't Archive::Tar heavier on memory than /bin/tar?
           Yes it is, see previous answer. Since "Compress::Zlib"
           and therefore "IO::Zlib" doesn't support "seek" on
           their filehandles, there is little choice but to read
           the archive into memory.  This is ok if you want to do
           in-memory manipulation of the archive.

           If you just want to extract, use the "extract_archive"



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           class method instead. It will optimize and write to
           disk immediately.

           Another option is to use the "iter" class method to
           iterate over the files in the tarball without reading
           them all in memory at once.

       Can you lazy-load data instead?
           In some cases, yes. You can use the "iter" class
           method to iterate over the files in the tarball
           without reading them all in memory at once.

       How much memory will an X kb tar file need?
           Probably more than X kb, since it will all be read
           into memory. If this is a problem, and you don't need
           to do in memory manipulation of the archive, consider
           using the "iter" class method, or "/bin/tar" instead.

       What do you do with unsupported filetypes in an archive?
           "Unix" has a few filetypes that aren't supported on
           other platforms, like "Win32". If we encounter a
           "hardlink" or "symlink" we'll just try to make a copy
           of the original file, rather than throwing an error.

           This does require you to read the entire archive in to
           memory first, since otherwise we wouldn't know what
           data to fill the copy with.  (This means that you
           cannot use the class methods, including "iter" on
           archives that have incompatible filetypes and still
           expect things to work).

           For other filetypes, like "chardevs" and "blockdevs"
           we'll warn that the extraction of this particular item
           didn't work.

       I'm using WinZip, or some other non-POSIX client, and
       files are not being extracted properly!
           By default, "Archive::Tar" is in a completely POSIX-
           compatible mode, which uses the POSIX-specification of
           "tar" to store files.  For paths greather than 100
           characters, this is done using the "POSIX header
           prefix". Non-POSIX-compatible clients may not support
           this part of the specification, and may only support
           the "GNU Extended Header" functionality. To facilitate
           those clients, you can set the
           $Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX variable to "true".
           See the "GLOBAL VARIABLES" section for details on this
           variable.

           Note that GNU tar earlier than version 1.14 does not
           cope well with the "POSIX header prefix". If you use
           such a version, consider setting the
           $Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX variable to "true".




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       How do I extract only files that have property X from an
       archive?
           Sometimes, you might not wish to extract a complete
           archive, just the files that are relevant to you,
           based on some criteria.

           You can do this by filtering a list of
           "Archive::Tar::File" objects based on your criteria.
           For example, to extract only files that have the
           string "foo" in their title, you would use:

               $tar->extract(
                   grep { $_->full_path =~ /foo/ } $tar->get_files
               );

           This way, you can filter on any attribute of the files
           in the archive.  Consult the "Archive::Tar::File"
           documentation on how to use these objects.

       How do I access .tar.Z files?
           The "Archive::Tar" module can optionally use
           "Compress::Zlib" (via the "IO::Zlib" module) to access
           tar files that have been compressed with "gzip".
           Unfortunately tar files compressed with the Unix
           "compress" utility cannot be read by "Compress::Zlib"
           and so cannot be directly accesses by "Archive::Tar".

           If the "uncompress" or "gunzip" programs are
           available, you can use one of these workarounds to
           read ".tar.Z" files from "Archive::Tar"

           Firstly with "uncompress"

               use Archive::Tar;

               open F, "uncompress -c $filename |";
               my $tar = Archive::Tar->new(*F);
               ...

           and this with "gunzip"

               use Archive::Tar;

               open F, "gunzip -c $filename |";
               my $tar = Archive::Tar->new(*F);
               ...

           Similarly, if the "compress" program is available, you
           can use this to write a ".tar.Z" file

               use Archive::Tar;
               use IO::File;

               my $fh = new IO::File "| compress -c >$filename";



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               my $tar = Archive::Tar->new();
               ...
               $tar->write($fh);
               $fh->close ;

       How do I handle Unicode strings?
           "Archive::Tar" uses byte semantics for any files it
           reads from or writes to disk. This is not a problem if
           you only deal with files and never look at their
           content or work solely with byte strings. But if you
           use Unicode strings with character semantics, some
           additional steps need to be taken.

           For example, if you add a Unicode string like

               # Problem
               $tar->add_data('file.txt', "Euro: \x{20AC}");

           then there will be a problem later when the tarfile
           gets written out to disk via "$tar-"write()>:

               Wide character in print at .../Archive/Tar.pm line 1014.

           The data was added as a Unicode string and when
           writing it out to disk, the ":utf8" line discipline
           wasn't set by "Archive::Tar", so Perl tried to convert
           the string to ISO-8859 and failed. The written file
           now contains garbage.

           For this reason, Unicode strings need to be converted
           to UTF-8-encoded bytestrings before they are handed
           off to "add_data()":

               use Encode;
               my $data = "Accented character: \x{20AC}";
               $data = encode('utf8', $data);

               $tar->add_data('file.txt', $data);

           A opposite problem occurs if you extract a
           UTF8-encoded file from a tarball. Using
           "get_content()" on the "Archive::Tar::File" object
           will return its content as a bytestring, not as a
           Unicode string.

           If you want it to be a Unicode string (because you
           want character semantics with operations like regular
           expression matching), you need to decode the
           UTF8-encoded content and have Perl convert it into a
           Unicode string:

               use Encode;
               my $data = $tar->get_content();




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               # Make it a Unicode string
               $data = decode('utf8', $data);

           There is no easy way to provide this functionality in
           "Archive::Tar", because a tarball can contain many
           files, and each of which could be encoded in a
           different way.

CAVEATS
       The AIX tar does not fill all unused space in the tar
       archive with 0x00.  This sometimes leads to warning
       messages from "Archive::Tar".

         Invalid header block at offset nnn

       A fix for that problem is scheduled to be released in the
       following levels of AIX, all of which should be coming out
       in the 4th quarter of 2009:

        AIX 5.3 TL7 SP10
        AIX 5.3 TL8 SP8
        AIX 5.3 TL9 SP5
        AIX 5.3 TL10 SP2

        AIX 6.1 TL0 SP11
        AIX 6.1 TL1 SP7
        AIX 6.1 TL2 SP6
        AIX 6.1 TL3 SP3

       The IBM APAR number for this problem is IZ50240 (Reported
       component ID: 5765G0300 / AIX 5.3). It is possible to get
       an ifix for that problem.  If you need an ifix please
       contact your local IBM AIX support.

TODO
       Check if passed in handles are open for read/write
           Currently I don't know of any portable pure perl way
           to do this.  Suggestions welcome.

       Allow archives to be passed in as string
           Currently, we only allow opened filehandles or
           filenames, but not strings. The internals would need
           some reworking to facilitate stringified archives.

       Facilitate processing an opened filehandle of a compressed
       archive
           Currently, we only support this if the filehandle is
           an IO::Zlib object.  Environments, like apache, will
           present you with an opened filehandle to an uploaded
           file, which might be a compressed archive.

SEE ALSO
       The GNU tar specification
           "http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html"



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       The PAX format specication
           The specifcation which tar derives from; "
           http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/utilities/pax.html"

       A comparison of GNU and POSIX tar standards;
       "http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/tar/tar_114.html"
       GNU tar intends to switch to POSIX compatibility
           GNU Tar authors have expressed their intention to
           become completely POSIX-compatible;
           "http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_node/Formats.html"

       A Comparison between various tar implementations
           Lists known issues and incompatibilities;
           "http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/utils/archivers/star/README.otherbugs"

AUTHOR
       This module by Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>.

       Please reports bugs to <bug-archive-tar@rt.cpan.org>.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
       Thanks to Sean Burke, Chris Nandor, Chip Salzenberg, Tim
       Heaney, Gisle Aas, Rainer Tammer and especially Andrew
       Savige for their help and suggestions.

COPYRIGHT
       This module is copyright (c) 2002 - 2009 Jos Boumans
       <kane@cpan.org>. All rights reserved.

       This library is free software; you may redistribute and/or
       modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.


























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