RFC: alias tar="tar --backup" ?

[Alex Jones]

A new CLI version of file-roller would rock. We need more CLI-GUI
code/concept/functionality sharing. Other candidates include
gnome-system-monitor (vs. top) and nautilus (so you could browse DAV on
the CLI, just like you do local file systems, for example).

On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 15:18 -0700, Micah Cowan wrote:
> A user, timothy, describing his difficulties at:
> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/113154
> 
> describes his frustration as a new user, in discovering the hard way
> that tar's default is to overwrite existing files, causing him to lose
> important data.
> 
> While I'm opposed to fixing the problem in tar itself, as traditional
> usage frequently relies upon this behavior, I don't see why we couldn't
> make the experience of using tar interactively a little safer, by
> providing a default alias for tar in /etc/skel/.bashrc that backs-up
> existing files.
> 
> Comments?
> 
-- 
Alex Jones
http://alex.weej.com/