Package: tar
Version: 1.13.92-5
Severity: important

I do incremental backups with "tar cgfPl <snar-file> <tar-file>
<source>". In comparison directories are routinely reported as
'changed' (bug in tar?). Since my last installation update (around
3.3.2004) tar now reports changed directories on comparison ("tar df
<tar-file>") without a trailing '/' like this:

   root ~/ff>tar df b2.tar
   /boot: Contents differ

before it did this:

   root ~/ff>tar djf b2.tar
   /boot/: Contents differ

My backup-script filters the later form as error to be ignored.
However it cannot filter the former form, since a file might
be backed up incorrectly.

With the trailing '/' it was obvious that a directory was
affected. Now it looks like a file may be affected!  Not good at all!


Since this change may break anything that uses tar comparison output,
I hope there is some good rationale behind this change?


On a side note, the complains about modified directories in
incremental backups can be suppressed by giving tar the '-m'
option on comparison. (Aparently they are due to changed access
time from the time when tar accessed the directory to read it.)
Not perfect, but workable.


Additional info:

Kernel is 2.6.3
Distro is testing, updated last today (5.3.2004)
Arch is i386 (Athlon XP 2200+)
Filesystems: ext2, ext3

Regards,
Arno