From owner-freebsd-bugs  Sat Mar 18 00:39:28 1995
Return-Path: bugs-owner
Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id AAA23554 for bugs-outgoing; Sat, 18 Mar 1995 00:39:28 -0800
Received: from curry.epilogue.com (curry.epilogue.com [128.224.133.105]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id AAA23544 for <FreeBSD-bugfiler@freefall.cdrom.com>; Sat, 18 Mar 1995 00:39:24 -0800
Received: (from alan@localhost) by curry.epilogue.com (8.6.8/8.6.6) id DAA03693 for FreeBSD-bugfiler@freefall.cdrom.com; Sat, 18 Mar 1995 03:40:06 -0500
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 1995 03:40:06 -0500
From: Alan Bawden <alan@curry.epilogue.com>
Message-Id: <199503180840.DAA03693@curry.epilogue.com>
Subject: --sparse doesn't work
Index: gnu/usr.bin/tar FreeBSD-1.1.5.1
Apparently-To: FreeBSD-bugfiler@freefall.cdrom.com
Sender: bugs-owner@FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

Description:
	The `--sparse' option to tar has no effect whatsoever.
Repeat-By:
	Create a sparse file named "temp".  (Open a new file, seek out a few
	megabytes, write out a single non-zero byte, close the file.)  Do:
	
	  tar --create --sparse --file temp.tar temp
	
	Observe that temp.tar is larger than temp.  If --sparse was working,
	it would be smaller.
Fix:
	Add the line "CFLAGS+= -DBSD42=1" to /src/gnu/usr.bin/tar/Makefile.
	This is originally a problem with the configure script that the GNU
	folks wrote for GNU tar.  It contains a totally lame test for
	setting the BSD42 flag, which fails under FreeBSD, and about the
	only thing that depends on that flag is the handling of `--sparse'.
	I have already reported this problem to bug-gnu-utils@prep.ai.mit.edu.