[Bug 887107] Re: -h seems to store symlinks as hardlinks

[Daniel Manrique]

This behavior seems to have changed in GNU tar 1.24. See this mailing
list thread:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-tar/2011-11/msg00024.html

As per the thread, the commit that added the new behavior is:

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/tar.git/commit/?id=37ddfb0b7eb41cc3f58bce686d389b1e965e9ccf

So it appears this new behavior is "by design" and the intended way to
get the new behavior is to, as you mention, use --hard-dereference.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/887107

Title:
  -h seems to store symlinks as hardlinks

Status in “tar” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Ubuntu Release 11.04

  tar -chf test.tar someDirectory

  will generate a hardlink for each file that contained a *symbolic*
  link in its path in the original directory.

  Only writing

  tar --hard-dereference -chf test.tar someDirectory

  will prevent this from happening and store all files, also the ones
  reached through symbolic links, as plain files, removing all
  indications that there once were links.

  To me, this is a bug, since
  a) the option -h alone should cause all symbolic links to disappear, with the files originally reached through a symbolic link being dumped as plain files and
  b) I don't see any good reason in creating hardlinks (possibly later on as well, after extracting the file again) for symlinks, effectively changing one kind of link into the other.

  Expected behaviour to me would be that of tar 1.23, which stores
  symbolically linked files as plain files, just like the documentation
  (for both tar versions) says:

  "-h  follow symlinks; archive and dump the files they point to"

  
  To me, this bug is a real showstopper because it causes related trouble in a project I'm working in. A rapid resolution would be extremely nice.

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