These are not errors. They are simply warnings about extended attributes being ignored when extracting files, which seems completely fine to me, and creating the tar without those extended attributes has exactly the same outcome, but throws away the metadata at archive time instead of extraction time.
Furthermore, this is not an Apple/macOS issue. The tool used is bsdtar, so it would also affect all BSD-variants that default to bsdtar/libarchive, and those systems also have extended attributes, e.g., for SELinux, which would get added to the TAR.
Apple treats tar less like “portable Unix interchange” and more like “archive this filesystem object faithfully.” That is very Apple, and very libarchive. ;-)
This is probably going to get worse (as Apple continues to add macOS-specific metadata), so your workaround is very helpful.
I haven't tested it in a while, but at one point, setting the COPYFILE_DISABLE=1 env variable would disable the inclusion of macOS-specific metadata.
If I point "tape archive" at a file system, I want that file system archived to tape. And so, tar does.
If I don't, well, that's a fine option, and there's a fine option for that.
So it's less of a "workaround" or something that "gets worse", than, "No, I don't really want a tape archive of this filesystem, only of some of it." And that's supported.
That said, never seeing another .DS_Store should be a system-wide option!
Principle of least surprise is good engineering practice. The question is always whose surprise. Someone who expects tar to behave like other UNIX systems is going to be surprised by this. Someone who expects tar on Apple to have perfect fidelity would be surprised by not-this.
I increasingly feel like build systems should never be relying on any "native" utilities from the host system, and should instead be bringing them in via dependencies. You can't have this problem if your packaging system pulls in a specific portable `tar` library.
See: the permanent undismissable red icon to "finish setting up your Apple TV with your iPhone"
I think that the surprise of more data than expected is more desirable than the surprise of data loss. So in this case, it seems like the safe choice.
Well, you see, while this, frankly, applies not just to build systems but to most of software, the consensus in the community of distro-maintainers is that it's actually wrong: you should use your system's package manager, and tools it can install, and let it fiddle with the ambient environment and give you that delicious "path dependency". And if your distro's packaging environment doesn't allow to do the things you need (e.g. being able to install both mongodb 3.8 and mongodb 5.0, ideally at the same time, but okay, I can keep running apt remove/install over and over, but I do need to check if my app correctly handled the wire protocol changes), well, that's your problem for desiring strange things.
Yes please.
These can all die in a fire too, as far as I am concerned. macOS loves to treat the user's filesystem as its own personal garbage dump.
Linux developers already do. Using a BSD can already be a pain in the arse, thanks to (often poorly thought out) Linux-isms cropping up everywhere.
The warning can be suppressed by `--no-xattrs --no-mac-metadata`.
- tar czf dist.tar.gz dist
+ COPYFILE_DISABLE=1 tar czf dist.tar.gz dist tar --no-xattrs --no-mac-metadata -czf* https://mgorny.pl/articles/portability-of-tar-features.html#...
* Via: https://github.com/mxmlnkn/ratarmount/issues/145
bsdtar ≥3.7.2 apparently adds both types to its files for maximum portability:
* https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/pull/691/files#diff...
AFAICT, bsdtar will default to "ustar" format, but will auto-switch to "pax" if needed.
> For some reason
Very informative!
My computer should run programs when I tell it to run them.
Don’t blunt _every_ tool just to make them harder to cut yourself on.
Open question, is it worth attempting to main these semantics between mac and linux.
$ which gtar
gtar is /opt/homebrew/bin/gtarIt's in the name: GNU's Not Unix.
One thing that still trips me up though: `._Foo.txt` AppleDouble files get created in your filesystem any time something Finder-adjacent touches a folder, and gtar archives them just fine, but they show up as garbage on the Linux side. `dot_clean -m mydir/` before tarring kills them, or you can pipe through `--exclude='._*'` if you don't want to touch the source tree.
But still interesting nonetheless why they are added
What horrible advice also to download different tar versions, for something that should just be explained properly.
If it weren't for the "2024" in the title, I would have thought this to be a result from AI.
But it's not artificial intelligence. It's real stupidity.
Don't forget the MacBook Neo's A18 Pro :)
Oh...