Re: pgsql: Check that we have a working tar before trying to use it

On 12/8/21 11:15, Tom Lane wrote:
> Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> writes:
>> On 12/8/21 10:39, Tom Lane wrote:
>>> ISTM that effectively restricts the test to only running
>>> on machines with GNU tar, which basically removes all the
>>> interest of it.  We know what GNU tar does ... it's the
>>> weird legacy tar versions that might teach us something.
>>> See 57b5a9646 for a recent example of the sort of bug
>>> this test can no longer find.
>> I tested on a freebsd system before I did this for that reason. It's not
>> using GNU tar:
>> user@freebsd:~ $ tar --version
>> bsdtar 3.5.1 - libarchive 3.5.1 zlib/1.2.11 liblzma/5.2.5 bz2lib/1.0.8
> Right, but on AIX:
>
> tgl@gcc119:[/home/tgl]tar --version
> tar: Not a recognized flag: -
> Usage: tar -{c|r|t|u|x} [ -BdDEFhilmopRUsvwZ ] [ -Number ] [ -f TarFil e ]
>            [ -b Blocks ] [ -S [ Feet ] | [ Feet@Density ] | [ Blocksb ] ]
>            [ -L InputList ] [-X ExcludeFile] [ -N Blocks ] [ -C Directory ] File ...
> Usage: tar {c|r|t|u|x} [ bBdDEfFhilLXmNopRsSUvwZ[0-9] ] ]
>            [ Blocks ] [ TarFile ] [ InputList ] [ ExcludeFile ] 
>            [ [ Feet ] | [ Feet@Density ] | [ Blocksb ] ] [-C Directory ] File ...
> tgl@gcc119:[/home/tgl]echo $?
> 1
>
>> Do you have an alternative test we could use?
> I think you need to be straight up about it, say
>
>     touch foo; tar cf foo.tar foo
>
> (At least on the Unix machines I tried, it works to use /dev/null
> as the output file, saving one cleanup step.  But I don't know
> if that'll work on Windows.)
>
>             


Fair enough.


Actually, I think it makes more sense to simply revert this. bowerbird,
like all buildfarm animals, has a working tar. It's just that this one
is apparently seriously confused by using paths with a drive spec.


cheers


andrew


--
Andrew Dunstan
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com