> FWIW, both star and bsdtar support xattrs on Linux. > > It would be nice if GNU tar were compatible with those existing > implementations.
Thanks Tim, yes -- xattr-patched GNU tar would be unable to extract extended attributes from archives created by BSD tar now. In BSD tar pax headers you are using base64 encoding for xattr values *but* in different namespace --> so it will be very easy to allow GNU tar unpack also BSD tar archives. I missed that fact and I'll address that later. Otherwise, GNU tar should be compatible with star both ways because patch for GNU tar adopted pax headers encoding from star and I checked it before. And ACLs should be BSD tar <=> GNU tar <=> star both way compatible. Pavel
