Re: did tar(1) loose xz compression support in 11?

On Tue, 26 Aug 2014, Tim Kientzle wrote:
>
> On Aug 26, 2014, at 11:05 AM, Chris H <bsd-lists_at_bsdforge.com> wrote:
>
>> Greetings,
>> I'm currently testing 11. My build / install is from about 2 days ago.
>> I generally use xz compression, when creating archives. But when I
>> attempt the following:
>>
>> tar -cvJ --options xz:9 -f ./archive-name.tar.xz ./file
>>
>> it returns the following:
>>
>> tar: Undefined option: `xz:9'
>>
>> This has always worked in previous versions. Has the syntax changed,
>> and the man(1) pages just haven't caught up?
>
> I can’t see any evidence in libarchive’s source that this ever worked.

The man page is a little confusing.  Here it says:

   --options options
       Select optional behaviors for particular modules.  The
       argument is a text string containing comma-separated
       keywords and values. These are passed to the modules that
       handle particular formats to control how those formats will
       behave.  Each option has one of the following forms:

       key=value
               The key will be set to the specified value in every
               module that supports it.  Modules that do not
               support this key will ignore it.


Then below, after the last option, it says:

       ...
       zip:compression=type
               Use type as compression method.  Supported values are
               store (uncompressed) and deflate (gzip algorithm).

       If a provided option is not supported by any module, that is a
       fatal error.

The first states that it is ignored, the latter states that it
is a fatal error.  The meaning of "any module" is subtle, at
least for my feeble brain ;-)

Also, the syntax for "[lr]zip:compression=type" is very clear,
whereas the syntax for compression-level keys omit the "=value".

-- 
DE