Provided by: libarchive-tar-wrapper-perl_0.18-1_all 
NAME
Archive::Tar::Wrapper - API wrapper around the 'tar' utility
SYNOPSIS
use Archive::Tar::Wrapper;
my $arch = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->new();
# Open a tarball, expand it into a temporary directory
$arch->read("archive.tgz");
# Iterate over all entries in the archive
$arch->list_reset(); # Reset Iterator
# Iterate through archive
while(my $entry = $arch->list_next()) {
my($tar_path, $phys_path) = @$entry;
print "$tar_path\n";
}
# Get a huge list with all entries
for my $entry (@{$arch->list_all()}) {
my($tar_path, $real_path) = @$entry;
print "Tarpath: $tar_path Tempfile: $real_path\n";
}
# Add a new entry
$arch->add($logic_path, $file_or_stringref);
# Remove an entry
$arch->remove($logic_path);
# Find the physical location of a temporary file
my($tmp_path) = $arch->locate($tar_path);
# Create a tarball
$arch->write($tarfile, $compress);
DESCRIPTION
Archive::Tar::Wrapper is an API wrapper around the 'tar' command line utility. It never stores anything
in memory, but works on temporary directory structures on disk instead. It provides a mapping between the
logical paths in the tarball and the 'real' files in the temporary directory on disk.
It differs from Archive::Tar in two ways:
• Archive::Tar::Wrapper doesn't hold anything in memory. Everything is stored on disk.
• Archive::Tar::Wrapper is 100% compliant with the platform's "tar" utility, because it uses it
internally.
METHODS
my $arch = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->new()
Constructor for the tar wrapper class. Finds the "tar" executable by searching "PATH" and returning
the first hit. In case you want to use a different tar executable, you can specify it as a parameter:
my $arch = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->new(tar => '/path/to/tar');
Since "Archive::Tar::Wrapper" creates temporary directories to store tar data, the location of the
temporary directory can be specified:
my $arch = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->new(tmpdir => '/path/to/tmpdir');
Tremendous performance increases can be achieved if the temporary directory is located on a ram disk.
Check the "Using RAM Disks" section below for details.
Additional options can be passed to the "tar" command by using the "tar_read_options" and
"tar_write_options" parameters. Example:
my $arch = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->new(
tar_read_options => "p"
);
will use "tar xfp archive.tgz" to extract the tarball instead of just "tar xf archive.tgz". Gnu tar
supports even more options, these can be passed in via
my $arch = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->new(
tar_gnu_read_options => ["--numeric-owner"],
);
By default, the "list_*()" functions will return only file entries. Directories will be suppressed.
To have "list_*()" return directories as well, use
my $arch = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->new(
dirs => 1
);
If more files are added to a tarball than the command line can handle, "Archive::Tar::Wrapper" will
switch from using the command
tar cfv tarfile file1 file2 file3 ...
to
tar cfv tarfile -T filelist
where "filelist" is a file containing all file to be added. The default for this switch is 512, but
it can be changed by setting the parameter "max_cmd_line_args":
my $arch = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->new(
max_cmd_line_args => 1024
);
$arch->read("archive.tgz")
"read()" opens the given tarball, expands it into a temporary directory and returns 1 on success und
"undef" on failure. The temporary directory holding the tar data gets cleaned up when $arch goes out
of scope.
"read" handles both compressed and uncompressed files. To find out if a file is compressed or
uncompressed, it tries to guess by extension, then by checking the first couple of bytes in the
tarfile.
If only a limited number of files is needed from a tarball, they can be specified after the tarball
name:
$arch->read("archive.tgz", "path/file.dat", "path/sub/another.txt");
The file names are passed unmodified to the "tar" command, make sure that the file paths match
exactly what's in the tarball, otherwise "read()" will fail.
$arch->list_reset()
Resets the list iterator. To be used before the first call to $arch-list_next()>.
my($tar_path, $phys_path, $type) = $arch->list_next()
Returns the next item in the tarfile. It returns a list of three scalars: the relative path of the
item in the tarfile, the physical path to the unpacked file or directory on disk, and the type of the
entry (f=file, d=directory, l=symlink). Note that by default, Archive::Tar::Wrapper won't display
directories, unless the "dirs" parameter is set when running the constructor.
my $items = $arch->list_all()
Returns a reference to a (possibly huge) array of items in the tarfile. Each item is a reference to
an array, containing two elements: the relative path of the item in the tarfile and the physical path
to the unpacked file or directory on disk.
To iterate over the list, the following construct can be used:
# Get a huge list with all entries
for my $entry (@{$arch->list_all()}) {
my($tar_path, $real_path) = @$entry;
print "Tarpath: $tar_path Tempfile: $real_path\n";
}
If the list of items in the tarfile is big, use "list_reset()" and "list_next()" instead of
"list_all".
$arch->add($logic_path, $file_or_stringref, [$options])
Add a new file to the tarball. $logic_path is the virtual path of the file within the tarball.
$file_or_stringref is either a scalar, in which case it holds the physical path of a file on disk to
be transferred (i.e. copied) to the tarball. Or it is a reference to a scalar, in which case its
content is interpreted to be the data of the file.
If no additional parameters are given, permissions and user/group id settings of a file to be added
are copied. If you want different settings, specify them in the options hash:
$arch->add($logic_path, $stringref,
{ perm => 0755, uid => 123, gid => 10 });
If $file_or_stringref is a reference to a Unicode string, the "binmode" option has to be set to make
sure the string gets written as proper UTF-8 into the tarfile:
$arch->add($logic_path, $stringref, { binmode => ":utf8" });
$arch->remove($logic_path)
Removes a file from the tarball. $logic_path is the virtual path of the file within the tarball.
$arch->locate($logic_path)
Finds the physical location of a file, specified by $logic_path, which is the virtual path of the
file within the tarball. Returns a path to the temporary file "Archive::Tar::Wrapper" created to
manipulate the tarball on disk.
$arch->write($tarfile, $compress)
Write out the tarball by tarring up all temporary files and directories and store it in $tarfile on
disk. If $compress holds a true value, compression is used.
$arch->tardir()
Return the directory the tarball was unpacked in. This is sometimes useful to play dirty tricks on
"Archive::Tar::Wrapper" by mass-manipulating unpacked files before wrapping them back up into the
tarball.
$arch->is_gnu()
Checks if the tar executable is a GNU tar by running 'tar --version' and parsing the output for
"GNU".
Using RAM Disks
On Linux, it's quite easy to create a RAM disk and achieve tremendous speedups while untarring or
modifying a tarball. You can either create the RAM disk by hand by running
# mkdir -p /mnt/myramdisk
# mount -t tmpfs -o size=20m tmpfs /mnt/myramdisk
and then feeding the ramdisk as a temporary directory to Archive::Tar::Wrapper, like
my $tar = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->new( tmpdir => '/mnt/myramdisk' );
or using Archive::Tar::Wrapper's built-in option 'ramdisk':
my $tar = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->new(
ramdisk => {
type => 'tmpfs',
size => '20m', # 20 MB
},
);
Only drawback with the latter option is that creating the RAM disk needs to be performed as root, which
often isn't desirable for security reasons. For this reason, Archive::Tar::Wrapper offers a utility
functions that mounts the ramdisk and returns the temporary directory it's located in:
# Create new ramdisk (as root):
my $tmpdir = Archive::Tar::Wrapper->ramdisk_mount(
type => 'tmpfs',
size => '20m', # 20 MB
);
# Delete a ramdisk (as root):
Archive::Tar::Wrapper->ramdisk_unmount();
Optionally, the "ramdisk_mount()" command accepts a "tmpdir" parameter pointing to a temporary directory
for the ramdisk if you wish to set it yourself instead of letting Archive::Tar::Wrapper create it
automatically.
KNOWN LIMITATIONS
• Currently, only "tar" programs supporting the "z" option (for compressing/decompressing) are
supported. Future version will use "gzip" alternatively.
• Currently, you can't add empty directories to a tarball directly. You could add a temporary file
within a directory, and then "remove()" the file.
• If you delete a file, the empty directories it was located in stay in the tarball. You could try to
"locate()" them and delete them. This will be fixed, though.
• Filenames containing newlines are causing problems with the list iterators. To be fixed.
BUGS
Archive::Tar::Wrapper doesn't currently handle filenames with embedded newlines.
LEGALESE
Copyright 2005 by Mike Schilli, all rights reserved. This program is free software, you can redistribute
it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
AUTHOR
2005, Mike Schilli <cpan@perlmeister.com>
perl v5.18.1 2013-07-16 Archive::Tar::Wrapper(3pm)