Re: Linux 2.6.12

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>]

On Sat, 18 Jun 2005, Keith Owens wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 22:13:25 -0700 (PDT), 
> Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> wrote:
> >As some people may have noticed already, 2.6.12 is out there now.
> 
> tar xjvf linux-2.6.12.tar.bz2, using SuSE tar-1.13.25-325.3 on IA64,
> reports
> 
> tar: pax_global_header: Unknown file type 'g', extracted as normal file
> 
> It does not seem to cause any problems.

Yes, git creates tar-archives that use the extended pax headers, and I 
think you need tar-1.14 to fully understand them. They should not hurt 
(apart from the warning) on older versions of tar.

The extended header just contains a hidden comment record that tells the
git commit ID that was used to generate the tar-tree.

Because it's extracted as a regular file (instead of tar knowing that it's 
a comment header), you will now have a file called "pax_global_header" 
that has the contents

	52 comment=9ee1c939d1cb936b1f98e8d81aeffab57bae46ab

in it (where "9ee1c939d1cb936b1f98e8d81aeffab57bae46ab" is the git SHA1
name of the Linux-2.6.12 commit).

So it's not entirely "harmless" in that it causes a bogus file to be
created, but it's not like it's a huge problem either, and that bogus file
actually does contain real information (although it's not useful unless
you're a git user).

			Linus
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/