#1123833 tar: behaves inconsistently when filtering for '', /, /whatever

Package:
tar
Source:
tar
Description:
GNU version of the tar archiving utility
Submitter:
наб
Date:
2025-12-22 15:01:04 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1123833#5
Date:
2025-12-22 14:59:13 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

$ tar -tvaf v4root.tar ''
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
drwxr-xr-x 3/1               0 1974-06-13 00:50 /
drwxr-xr-x 3/1               0 1974-06-12 22:54 /bin/
-rwxr-xr-x 3/1            1514 1974-06-10 14:37 /bin/ar
-rwxr-xr-x 3/1            5720 1974-06-10 14:37 /bin/as
-rwxr-xr-x 3/1            5846 1974-06-10 14:37 /bin/bas
...
-rw-r--r-- 3/1             608 1974-06-13 00:50 /usr/sys/conf.o
-rw-r--r-- 3/1            1199 1974-06-10 14:37 /usr/sys/user.h
drwxrwxrwx 3/1               0 1974-06-10 14:37 /usr/tmp/
drwxrwxrwx 3/1               0 1974-06-12 22:51 /usr/lpd/
-rw-r--r-- 3/1           27624 1974-06-13 00:50 /unix
$ tar -tvaf v4root.tar '/'
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
drwxr-xr-x 3/1               0 1974-06-13 00:50 /
$ tar -tvaf v4root.tar '/dev'
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
drwxr-xr-x 3/1               0 1974-06-10 14:37 /dev/
crw-rw-rw- 3/1             0,0 1974-06-10 14:37 /dev/tty8
-r--r--r-- 3/1               0 1974-06-10 14:37 /dev/null

(File at <https://lfs.nabijaczleweli.xyz/0031-Utah_v4>.)

This seems clearly wrong to me.

Best,