Provided by: perl-doc_5.34.0-5ubuntu1_all bug

NAME

       Archive::Tar - module for manipulations of tar archives

SYNOPSIS

           use Archive::Tar;
           my $tar = Archive::Tar->new;

           $tar->read('origin.tgz');
           $tar->extract();

           $tar->add_files('file/foo.pl', 'docs/README');
           $tar->add_data('file/baz.txt', 'This is the contents now');

           $tar->rename('oldname', 'new/file/name');
           $tar->chown('/', 'root');
           $tar->chown('/', 'root:root');
           $tar->chmod('/tmp', '1777');

           $tar->write('files.tar');                   # plain tar
           $tar->write('files.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP);    # gzip compressed
           $tar->write('files.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP);    # bzip2 compressed
           $tar->write('files.txz', COMPRESS_XZ);      # xz compressed

DESCRIPTION

       Archive::Tar provides an object oriented mechanism for handling tar files.  It provides
       class methods for quick and easy files handling while also allowing for the creation of
       tar file objects for custom manipulation.  If you have the IO::Zlib module installed,
       Archive::Tar will also support compressed or gzipped tar files.

       An object of class Archive::Tar represents a .tar(.gz) archive full of files and things.

Object Methods

   Archive::Tar->new( [$file, $compressed] )
       Returns a new Tar object. If given any arguments, "new()" calls the "read()" method
       automatically, passing on the arguments provided to the "read()" method.

       If "new()" is invoked with arguments and the "read()" method fails for any reason, "new()"
       returns undef.

   $tar->read ( $filename|$handle, [$compressed, {opt => 'val'}] )
       Read the given tar file into memory.  The first argument can either be the name of a file
       or a reference to an already open filehandle (or an IO::Zlib object if it's compressed)

       The "read" will replace any previous content in $tar!

       The second argument may be considered optional, but remains for backwards compatibility.
       Archive::Tar now looks at the file magic to determine what class should be used to open
       the file and will transparently Do The Right Thing.

       Archive::Tar will warn if you try to pass a bzip2 / xz compressed file and the
       IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2 / IO::Uncompress::UnXz are not available and simply return.

       Note that you can currently not pass a "gzip" compressed filehandle, which is not opened
       with "IO::Zlib", a "bzip2" compressed filehandle, which is not opened with
       "IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2", a "xz" compressed filehandle, which is not opened with
       "IO::Uncompress::UnXz", nor a string containing the full archive information (either
       compressed or uncompressed). These are worth while features, but not currently
       implemented. See the "TODO" section.

       The third argument can be a hash reference with options. Note that all options are case-
       sensitive.

       limit
           Do not read more than "limit" files. This is useful if you have very big archives, and
           are only interested in the first few files.

       filter
           Can be set to a regular expression.  Only files with names that match the expression
           will be read.

       md5 Set to 1 and the md5sum of files will be returned (instead of file data)
               my $iter = Archive::Tar->iter( $file,  1, {md5 => 1} );
               while( my $f = $iter->() ) {
                   print $f->data . "\t" . $f->full_path . $/;
               }

       extract
           If set to true, immediately extract entries when reading them. This gives you the same
           memory break as the "extract_archive" function.  Note however that entries will not be
           read into memory, but written straight to disk. This means no "Archive::Tar::File"
           objects are created for you to inspect.

       All files are stored internally as "Archive::Tar::File" objects.  Please consult the
       Archive::Tar::File documentation for details.

       Returns the number of files read in scalar context, and a list of "Archive::Tar::File"
       objects in list context.

   $tar->contains_file( $filename )
       Check if the archive contains a certain file.  It will return true if the file is in the
       archive, false otherwise.

       Note however, that this function does an exact match using "eq" on the full path. So it
       cannot compensate for case-insensitive file- systems or compare 2 paths to see if they
       would point to the same underlying file.

   $tar->extract( [@filenames] )
       Write files whose names are equivalent to any of the names in @filenames to disk, creating
       subdirectories as necessary. This might not work too well under VMS.  Under MacPerl, the
       file's modification time will be converted to the MacOS zero of time, and appropriate
       conversions will be done to the path.  However, the length of each element of the path is
       not inspected to see whether it's longer than MacOS currently allows (32 characters).

       If "extract" is called without a list of file names, the entire contents of the archive
       are extracted.

       Returns a list of filenames extracted.

   $tar->extract_file( $file, [$extract_path] )
       Write an entry, whose name is equivalent to the file name provided to disk. Optionally
       takes a second parameter, which is the full native path (including filename) the entry
       will be written to.

       For example:

           $tar->extract_file( 'name/in/archive', 'name/i/want/to/give/it' );

           $tar->extract_file( $at_file_object,   'name/i/want/to/give/it' );

       Returns true on success, false on failure.

   $tar->list_files( [\@properties] )
       Returns a list of the names of all the files in the archive.

       If "list_files()" is passed an array reference as its first argument it returns a list of
       hash references containing the requested properties of each file.  The following list of
       properties is supported: name, size, mtime (last modified date), mode, uid, gid, linkname,
       uname, gname, devmajor, devminor, prefix.

       Passing an array reference containing only one element, 'name', is special cased to return
       a list of names rather than a list of hash references, making it equivalent to calling
       "list_files" without arguments.

   $tar->get_files( [@filenames] )
       Returns the "Archive::Tar::File" objects matching the filenames provided. If no filename
       list was passed, all "Archive::Tar::File" objects in the current Tar object are returned.

       Please refer to the "Archive::Tar::File" documentation on how to handle these objects.

   $tar->get_content( $file )
       Return the content of the named file.

   $tar->replace_content( $file, $content )
       Make the string $content be the content for the file named $file.

   $tar->rename( $file, $new_name )
       Rename the file of the in-memory archive to $new_name.

       Note that you must specify a Unix path for $new_name, since per tar standard, all files in
       the archive must be Unix paths.

       Returns true on success and false on failure.

   $tar->chmod( $file, $mode )
       Change mode of $file to $mode.

       Returns true on success and false on failure.

   $tar->chown( $file, $uname [, $gname] )
       Change owner $file to $uname and $gname.

       Returns true on success and false on failure.

   $tar->remove (@filenamelist)
       Removes any entries with names matching any of the given filenames from the in-memory
       archive. Returns a list of "Archive::Tar::File" objects that remain.

   $tar->clear
       "clear" clears the current in-memory archive. This effectively gives you a 'blank' object,
       ready to be filled again. Note that "clear" only has effect on the object, not the
       underlying tarfile.

   $tar->write ( [$file, $compressed, $prefix] )
       Write the in-memory archive to disk.  The first argument can either be the name of a file
       or a reference to an already open filehandle (a GLOB reference).

       The second argument is used to indicate compression. You can compress using "gzip",
       "bzip2" or "xz". If you pass a digit, it's assumed to be the "gzip" compression level
       (between 1 and 9), but the use of constants is preferred:

         # write a gzip compressed file
         $tar->write( 'out.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP );

         # write a bzip compressed file
         $tar->write( 'out.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP );

         # write a xz compressed file
         $tar->write( 'out.txz', COMPRESS_XZ );

       Note that when you pass in a filehandle, the compression argument is ignored, as all files
       are printed verbatim to your filehandle.  If you wish to enable compression with
       filehandles, use an "IO::Zlib", "IO::Compress::Bzip2" or "IO::Compress::Xz" filehandle
       instead.

       The third argument is an optional prefix. All files will be tucked away in the directory
       you specify as prefix. So if you have files 'a' and 'b' in your archive, and you specify
       'foo' as prefix, they will be written to the archive as 'foo/a' and 'foo/b'.

       If no arguments are given, "write" returns the entire formatted archive as a string, which
       could be useful if you'd like to stuff the archive into a socket or a pipe to gzip or
       something.

   $tar->add_files( @filenamelist )
       Takes a list of filenames and adds them to the in-memory archive.

       The path to the file is automatically converted to a Unix like equivalent for use in the
       archive, and, if on MacOS, the file's modification time is converted from the MacOS epoch
       to the Unix epoch.  So tar archives created on MacOS with Archive::Tar can be read both
       with tar on Unix and applications like suntar or Stuffit Expander on MacOS.

       Be aware that the file's type/creator and resource fork will be lost, which is usually
       what you want in cross-platform archives.

       Instead of a filename, you can also pass it an existing "Archive::Tar::File" object from,
       for example, another archive. The object will be clone, and effectively be a copy of the
       original, not an alias.

       Returns a list of "Archive::Tar::File" objects that were just added.

   $tar->add_data ( $filename, $data, [$opthashref] )
       Takes a filename, a scalar full of data and optionally a reference to a hash with specific
       options.

       Will add a file to the in-memory archive, with name $filename and content $data. Specific
       properties can be set using $opthashref.  The following list of properties is supported:
       name, size, mtime (last modified date), mode, uid, gid, linkname, uname, gname, devmajor,
       devminor, prefix, type.  (On MacOS, the file's path and modification times are converted
       to Unix equivalents.)

       Valid values for the file type are the following constants defined by
       Archive::Tar::Constant:

       FILE
           Regular file.

       HARDLINK
       SYMLINK
           Hard and symbolic ("soft") links; linkname should specify target.

       CHARDEV
       BLOCKDEV
           Character and block devices. devmajor and devminor should specify the major and minor
           device numbers.

       DIR Directory.

       FIFO
           FIFO (named pipe).

       SOCKET
           Socket.

       Returns the "Archive::Tar::File" object that was just added, or "undef" on failure.

   $tar->error( [$BOOL] )
       Returns the current error string (usually, the last error reported).  If a true value was
       specified, it will give the "Carp::longmess" equivalent of the error, in effect giving you
       a stacktrace.

       For backwards compatibility, this error is also available as $Archive::Tar::error although
       it is much recommended you use the method call instead.

   $tar->setcwd( $cwd );
       "Archive::Tar" needs to know the current directory, and it will run "Cwd::cwd()" every
       time it extracts a relative entry from the tarfile and saves it in the file system. (As of
       version 1.30, however, "Archive::Tar" will use the speed optimization described below
       automatically, so it's only relevant if you're using "extract_file()").

       Since "Archive::Tar" doesn't change the current directory internally while it is
       extracting the items in a tarball, all calls to "Cwd::cwd()" can be avoided if we can
       guarantee that the current directory doesn't get changed externally.

       To use this performance boost, set the current directory via

           use Cwd;
           $tar->setcwd( cwd() );

       once before calling a function like "extract_file" and "Archive::Tar" will use the current
       directory setting from then on and won't call "Cwd::cwd()" internally.

       To switch back to the default behaviour, use

           $tar->setcwd( undef );

       and "Archive::Tar" will call "Cwd::cwd()" internally again.

       If you're using "Archive::Tar"'s "extract()" method, "setcwd()" will be called for you.

Class Methods

   Archive::Tar->create_archive($file, $compressed, @filelist)
       Creates a tar file from the list of files provided.  The first argument can either be the
       name of the tar file to create or a reference to an open file handle (e.g. a GLOB
       reference).

       The second argument is used to indicate compression. You can compress using "gzip",
       "bzip2" or "xz". If you pass a digit, it's assumed to be the "gzip" compression level
       (between 1 and 9), but the use of constants is preferred:

         # write a gzip compressed file
         Archive::Tar->create_archive( 'out.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP, @filelist );

         # write a bzip compressed file
         Archive::Tar->create_archive( 'out.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP, @filelist );

         # write a xz compressed file
         Archive::Tar->create_archive( 'out.txz', COMPRESS_XZ, @filelist );

       Note that when you pass in a filehandle, the compression argument is ignored, as all files
       are printed verbatim to your filehandle.  If you wish to enable compression with
       filehandles, use an "IO::Zlib", "IO::Compress::Bzip2" or "IO::Compress::Xz" filehandle
       instead.

       The remaining arguments list the files to be included in the tar file.  These files must
       all exist. Any files which don't exist or can't be read are silently ignored.

       If the archive creation fails for any reason, "create_archive" will return false. Please
       use the "error" method to find the cause of the failure.

       Note that this method does not write "on the fly" as it were; it still reads all the files
       into memory before writing out the archive.  Consult the FAQ below if this is a problem.

   Archive::Tar->iter( $filename, [ $compressed, {opt => $val} ] )
       Returns an iterator function that reads the tar file without loading it all in memory.
       Each time the function is called it will return the next file in the tarball. The files
       are returned as "Archive::Tar::File" objects. The iterator function returns the empty list
       once it has exhausted the files contained.

       The second argument can be a hash reference with options, which are identical to the
       arguments passed to "read()".

       Example usage:

           my $next = Archive::Tar->iter( "example.tar.gz", 1, {filter => qr/\.pm$/} );

           while( my $f = $next->() ) {
               print $f->name, "\n";

               $f->extract or warn "Extraction failed";

               # ....
           }

   Archive::Tar->list_archive($file, $compressed, [\@properties])
       Returns a list of the names of all the files in the archive.  The first argument can
       either be the name of the tar file to list or a reference to an open file handle (e.g. a
       GLOB reference).

       If "list_archive()" is passed an array reference as its third argument it returns a list
       of hash references containing the requested properties of each file.  The following list
       of properties is supported: full_path, name, size, mtime (last modified date), mode, uid,
       gid, linkname, uname, gname, devmajor, devminor, prefix, type.

       See "Archive::Tar::File" for details about supported properties.

       Passing an array reference containing only one element, 'name', is special cased to return
       a list of names rather than a list of hash references.

   Archive::Tar->extract_archive($file, $compressed)
       Extracts the contents of the tar file.  The first argument can either be the name of the
       tar file to create or a reference to an open file handle (e.g. a GLOB reference).  All
       relative paths in the tar file will be created underneath the current working directory.

       "extract_archive" will return a list of files it extracted.  If the archive extraction
       fails for any reason, "extract_archive" will return false.  Please use the "error" method
       to find the cause of the failure.

   $bool = Archive::Tar->has_io_string
       Returns true if we currently have "IO::String" support loaded.

       Either "IO::String" or "perlio" support is needed to support writing stringified archives.
       Currently, "perlio" is the preferred method, if available.

       See the "GLOBAL VARIABLES" section to see how to change this preference.

   $bool = Archive::Tar->has_perlio
       Returns true if we currently have "perlio" support loaded.

       This requires "perl-5.8" or higher, compiled with "perlio"

       Either "IO::String" or "perlio" support is needed to support writing stringified archives.
       Currently, "perlio" is the preferred method, if available.

       See the "GLOBAL VARIABLES" section to see how to change this preference.

   $bool = Archive::Tar->has_zlib_support
       Returns true if "Archive::Tar" can extract "zlib" compressed archives

   $bool = Archive::Tar->has_bzip2_support
       Returns true if "Archive::Tar" can extract "bzip2" compressed archives

   $bool = Archive::Tar->has_xz_support
       Returns true if "Archive::Tar" can extract "xz" compressed archives

   Archive::Tar->can_handle_compressed_files
       A simple checking routine, which will return true if "Archive::Tar" is able to uncompress
       compressed archives on the fly with "IO::Zlib", "IO::Compress::Bzip2" and
       "IO::Compress::Xz" or false if not both are installed.

       You can use this as a shortcut to determine whether "Archive::Tar" will do what you think
       before passing compressed archives to its "read" method.

GLOBAL VARIABLES

   $Archive::Tar::FOLLOW_SYMLINK
       Set this variable to 1 to make "Archive::Tar" effectively make a copy of the file when
       extracting. Default is 0, which means the symlink stays intact. Of course, you will have
       to pack the file linked to as well.

       This option is checked when you write out the tarfile using "write" or "create_archive".

       This works just like "/bin/tar"'s "-h" option.

   $Archive::Tar::CHOWN
       By default, "Archive::Tar" will try to "chown" your files if it is able to. In some cases,
       this may not be desired. In that case, set this variable to 0 to disable "chown"-ing, even
       if it were possible.

       The default is 1.

   $Archive::Tar::CHMOD
       By default, "Archive::Tar" will try to "chmod" your files to whatever mode was specified
       for the particular file in the archive.  In some cases, this may not be desired. In that
       case, set this variable to 0 to disable "chmod"-ing.

       The default is 1.

   $Archive::Tar::SAME_PERMISSIONS
       When, $Archive::Tar::CHMOD is enabled, this setting controls whether the permissions on
       files from the archive are used without modification of if they are filtered by removing
       any setid bits and applying the current umask.

       The default is 1 for the root user and 0 for normal users.

   $Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX
       By default, "Archive::Tar" will try to put paths that are over 100 characters in the
       "prefix" field of your tar header, as defined per POSIX-standard. However, some (older)
       tar programs do not implement this spec. To retain compatibility with these older or non-
       POSIX compliant versions, you can set the $DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX variable to a true value, and
       "Archive::Tar" will use an alternate way of dealing with paths over 100 characters by
       using the "GNU Extended Header" feature.

       Note that clients who do not support the "GNU Extended Header" feature will not be able to
       read these archives. Such clients include tars on "Solaris", "Irix" and "AIX".

       The default is 0.

   $Archive::Tar::DEBUG
       Set this variable to 1 to always get the "Carp::longmess" output of the warnings, instead
       of the regular "carp". This is the same message you would get by doing:

           $tar->error(1);

       Defaults to 0.

   $Archive::Tar::WARN
       Set this variable to 0 if you do not want any warnings printed.  Personally I recommend
       against doing this, but people asked for the option. Also, be advised that this is of
       course not threadsafe.

       Defaults to 1.

   $Archive::Tar::error
       Holds the last reported error. Kept for historical reasons, but its use is very much
       discouraged. Use the "error()" method instead:

           warn $tar->error unless $tar->extract;

       Note that in older versions of this module, the "error()" method would return an
       effectively global value even when called an instance method as above. This has since been
       fixed, and multiple instances of "Archive::Tar" now have separate error strings.

   $Archive::Tar::INSECURE_EXTRACT_MODE
       This variable indicates whether "Archive::Tar" should allow files to be extracted outside
       their current working directory.

       Allowing this could have security implications, as a malicious tar archive could alter or
       replace any file the extracting user has permissions to. Therefor, the default is to not
       allow insecure extractions.

       If you trust the archive, or have other reasons to allow the archive to write files
       outside your current working directory, set this variable to "true".

       Note that this is a backwards incompatible change from version 1.36 and before.

   $Archive::Tar::HAS_PERLIO
       This variable holds a boolean indicating if we currently have "perlio" support loaded.
       This will be enabled for any perl greater than 5.8 compiled with "perlio".

       If you feel strongly about disabling it, set this variable to "false". Note that you will
       then need "IO::String" installed to support writing stringified archives.

       Don't change this variable unless you really know what you're doing.

   $Archive::Tar::HAS_IO_STRING
       This variable holds a boolean indicating if we currently have "IO::String" support loaded.
       This will be enabled for any perl that has a loadable "IO::String" module.

       If you feel strongly about disabling it, set this variable to "false". Note that you will
       then need "perlio" support from your perl to be able to  write stringified archives.

       Don't change this variable unless you really know what you're doing.

   $Archive::Tar::ZERO_PAD_NUMBERS
       This variable holds a boolean indicating if we will create zero padded numbers for "size",
       "mtime" and "checksum".  The default is 0, indicating that we will create space padded
       numbers. Added for compatibility with "busybox" implementations.

   Tuning the way RESOLVE_SYMLINK will works
               You can tune the behaviour by setting the $Archive::Tar::RESOLVE_SYMLINK variable,
               or $ENV{PERL5_AT_RESOLVE_SYMLINK} before loading the module Archive::Tar.

         Values can be one of the following:

                       none
                  Disable this mechanism and failed as it was in previous version (<1.88)

                       speed (default)
                  If you prefer speed
                  this will read again the whole archive using read() so all entries
                  will be available

           memory
                  If you prefer memory

               Limitation

                       It won't work for terminal, pipe or sockets or every non seekable source.

FAQ

       What's the minimum perl version required to run Archive::Tar?
           You will need perl version 5.005_03 or newer.

       Isn't Archive::Tar slow?
           Yes it is. It's pure perl, so it's a lot slower then your "/bin/tar" However, it's
           very portable. If speed is an issue, consider using "/bin/tar" instead.

       Isn't Archive::Tar heavier on memory than /bin/tar?
           Yes it is, see previous answer. Since "Compress::Zlib" and therefore "IO::Zlib"
           doesn't support "seek" on their filehandles, there is little choice but to read the
           archive into memory.  This is ok if you want to do in-memory manipulation of the
           archive.

           If you just want to extract, use the "extract_archive" class method instead. It will
           optimize and write to disk immediately.

           Another option is to use the "iter" class method to iterate over the files in the
           tarball without reading them all in memory at once.

       Can you lazy-load data instead?
           In some cases, yes. You can use the "iter" class method to iterate over the files in
           the tarball without reading them all in memory at once.

       How much memory will an X kb tar file need?
           Probably more than X kb, since it will all be read into memory. If this is a problem,
           and you don't need to do in memory manipulation of the archive, consider using the
           "iter" class method, or "/bin/tar" instead.

       What do you do with unsupported filetypes in an archive?
           "Unix" has a few filetypes that aren't supported on other platforms, like "Win32". If
           we encounter a "hardlink" or "symlink" we'll just try to make a copy of the original
           file, rather than throwing an error.

           This does require you to read the entire archive in to memory first, since otherwise
           we wouldn't know what data to fill the copy with.  (This means that you cannot use the
           class methods, including "iter" on archives that have incompatible filetypes and still
           expect things to work).

           For other filetypes, like "chardevs" and "blockdevs" we'll warn that the extraction of
           this particular item didn't work.

       I'm using WinZip, or some other non-POSIX client, and files are not being extracted
       properly!
           By default, "Archive::Tar" is in a completely POSIX-compatible mode, which uses the
           POSIX-specification of "tar" to store files.  For paths greater than 100 characters,
           this is done using the "POSIX header prefix". Non-POSIX-compatible clients may not
           support this part of the specification, and may only support the "GNU Extended Header"
           functionality. To facilitate those clients, you can set the
           $Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX variable to "true". See the "GLOBAL VARIABLES"
           section for details on this variable.

           Note that GNU tar earlier than version 1.14 does not cope well with the "POSIX header
           prefix". If you use such a version, consider setting the
           $Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX variable to "true".

       How do I extract only files that have property X from an archive?
           Sometimes, you might not wish to extract a complete archive, just the files that are
           relevant to you, based on some criteria.

           You can do this by filtering a list of "Archive::Tar::File" objects based on your
           criteria. For example, to extract only files that have the string "foo" in their
           title, you would use:

               $tar->extract(
                   grep { $_->full_path =~ /foo/ } $tar->get_files
               );

           This way, you can filter on any attribute of the files in the archive.  Consult the
           "Archive::Tar::File" documentation on how to use these objects.

       How do I access .tar.Z files?
           The "Archive::Tar" module can optionally use "Compress::Zlib" (via the "IO::Zlib"
           module) to access tar files that have been compressed with "gzip". Unfortunately tar
           files compressed with the Unix "compress" utility cannot be read by "Compress::Zlib"
           and so cannot be directly accesses by "Archive::Tar".

           If the "uncompress" or "gunzip" programs are available, you can use one of these
           workarounds to read ".tar.Z" files from "Archive::Tar"

           Firstly with "uncompress"

               use Archive::Tar;

               open F, "uncompress -c $filename |";
               my $tar = Archive::Tar->new(*F);
               ...

           and this with "gunzip"

               use Archive::Tar;

               open F, "gunzip -c $filename |";
               my $tar = Archive::Tar->new(*F);
               ...

           Similarly, if the "compress" program is available, you can use this to write a
           ".tar.Z" file

               use Archive::Tar;
               use IO::File;

               my $fh = IO::File->new( "| compress -c >$filename" );
               my $tar = Archive::Tar->new();
               ...
               $tar->write($fh);
               $fh->close ;

       How do I handle Unicode strings?
           "Archive::Tar" uses byte semantics for any files it reads from or writes to disk. This
           is not a problem if you only deal with files and never look at their content or work
           solely with byte strings. But if you use Unicode strings with character semantics,
           some additional steps need to be taken.

           For example, if you add a Unicode string like

               # Problem
               $tar->add_data('file.txt', "Euro: \x{20AC}");

           then there will be a problem later when the tarfile gets written out to disk via
           "$tar->write()":

               Wide character in print at .../Archive/Tar.pm line 1014.

           The data was added as a Unicode string and when writing it out to disk, the ":utf8"
           line discipline wasn't set by "Archive::Tar", so Perl tried to convert the string to
           ISO-8859 and failed. The written file now contains garbage.

           For this reason, Unicode strings need to be converted to UTF-8-encoded bytestrings
           before they are handed off to "add_data()":

               use Encode;
               my $data = "Accented character: \x{20AC}";
               $data = encode('utf8', $data);

               $tar->add_data('file.txt', $data);

           A opposite problem occurs if you extract a UTF8-encoded file from a tarball. Using
           "get_content()" on the "Archive::Tar::File" object will return its content as a
           bytestring, not as a Unicode string.

           If you want it to be a Unicode string (because you want character semantics with
           operations like regular expression matching), you need to decode the UTF8-encoded
           content and have Perl convert it into a Unicode string:

               use Encode;
               my $data = $tar->get_content();

               # Make it a Unicode string
               $data = decode('utf8', $data);

           There is no easy way to provide this functionality in "Archive::Tar", because a
           tarball can contain many files, and each of which could be encoded in a different way.

CAVEATS

       The AIX tar does not fill all unused space in the tar archive with 0x00.  This sometimes
       leads to warning messages from "Archive::Tar".

         Invalid header block at offset nnn

       A fix for that problem is scheduled to be released in the following levels of AIX, all of
       which should be coming out in the 4th quarter of 2009:

        AIX 5.3 TL7 SP10
        AIX 5.3 TL8 SP8
        AIX 5.3 TL9 SP5
        AIX 5.3 TL10 SP2

        AIX 6.1 TL0 SP11
        AIX 6.1 TL1 SP7
        AIX 6.1 TL2 SP6
        AIX 6.1 TL3 SP3

       The IBM APAR number for this problem is IZ50240 (Reported component ID: 5765G0300 / AIX
       5.3). It is possible to get an ifix for that problem.  If you need an ifix please contact
       your local IBM AIX support.

TODO

       Check if passed in handles are open for read/write
           Currently I don't know of any portable pure perl way to do this.  Suggestions welcome.

       Allow archives to be passed in as string
           Currently, we only allow opened filehandles or filenames, but not strings. The
           internals would need some reworking to facilitate stringified archives.

       Facilitate processing an opened filehandle of a compressed archive
           Currently, we only support this if the filehandle is an IO::Zlib object.
           Environments, like apache, will present you with an opened filehandle to an uploaded
           file, which might be a compressed archive.

SEE ALSO

       The GNU tar specification
           "http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html"

       The PAX format specification
           The specification which tar derives from; "
           http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/utilities/pax.html"

       A comparison of GNU and POSIX tar standards;
       "http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/tar/tar_114.html"
       GNU tar intends to switch to POSIX compatibility
           GNU Tar authors have expressed their intention to become completely POSIX-compatible;
           "http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_node/Formats.html"

       A Comparison between various tar implementations
           Lists known issues and incompatibilities;
           "http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/utils/archivers/star/README.otherbugs"

AUTHOR

       This module by Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>.

       Please reports bugs to <bug-archive-tar@rt.cpan.org>.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       Thanks to Sean Burke, Chris Nandor, Chip Salzenberg, Tim Heaney, Gisle Aas, Rainer Tammer
       and especially Andrew Savige for their help and suggestions.

COPYRIGHT

       This module is copyright (c) 2002 - 2009 Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>. All rights reserved.

       This library is free software; you may redistribute and/or modify it under the same terms
       as Perl itself.