From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Aug 2 23:51:13 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 79F621065680 for ; Sat, 2 Aug 2008 23:51:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: from dan.emsphone.com (dan.emsphone.com [199.67.51.101]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3BDAC8FC15 for ; Sat, 2 Aug 2008 23:51:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: from dan.emsphone.com (smmsp@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dan.emsphone.com (8.14.3/8.14.2) with ESMTP id m72NpB5k040102 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Sat, 2 Aug 2008 18:51:11 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: (from dan@localhost) by dan.emsphone.com (8.14.3/8.14.2/Submit) id m72NpAR6040077; Sat, 2 Aug 2008 18:51:10 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from dan) Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 18:51:09 -0500 From: Dan Nelson To: perryh@pluto.rain.com Message-ID: <20080802235109.GB93138@dan.emsphone.com> References: <4894ef2e.2NiKL22MfAcdbs27%perryh@pluto.rain.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4894ef2e.2NiKL22MfAcdbs27%perryh@pluto.rain.com> X-OS: FreeBSD 7.0-STABLE User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: undocumented tar --unlink switch X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2008 23:51:13 -0000 In the last episode (Aug 02), perryh@pluto.rain.com said: > Around line 37 of /usr/src/usr.sbin/pkg_install/add/extract.c > there's an invocation of /usr/bin/tar with a --unlink switch, > which I don't see mentioned in the tar(1) manpage. Anyone > happen to know what this does, or do I need to dig into the > code? That's just the longopts version of -U. They're mainly for gnutar compatibility, and the manpage refers to them at the very end: There are alternative long options for many of the short options that are deliberately not documented. -- Dan Nelson dnelson@allantgroup.com