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Subj:	I bungled my new VMS TAR: version 1.2 on the way...

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Date: 12 Jul 90 05:33:05 GMT
From: munnari.oz.au!murtoa.cs.mu.oz.au!viccol!timcc@uunet.uu.net  (Tim Cook)
Organization: Computer Services, Victoria College, Melbourne
Subject: I bungled my new VMS TAR: version 1.2 on the way...
Message-Id: <6304.269bc542@csv.viccol.edu.au>
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Well, I thought I had a simple patch on my hands.  So simple that it could
be trusted to be correct just from re-checking the source.

My belief in testing has been restored though, by the functionality of my
new version of VMS TAR, version 1.1-2.  I stuffed it.  That version will
not extract files properly (well, it will do directories and report links
:-).

The quick fix is again included below (this can be "unofficial" version
1.1-3QF), but I have fixed another bug and enhanced the way TAR LIST
reports links, so I actually have a new version to upload to
sao.aarnet.edu.au and acfcluster.nyu.edu's anonymous FTP areas (see my
previous posting for details).  This will be known as VMS TAR version 1.2. 
Just look for a version with a date later than today (11 Jul 1990).

Alternatively, you could hang on to version 1.1-1, whose only major bug is
in extracting links (and can be worked around).

The quick fix:

Modify TAR_EXTRACT, so that a section that looks like:
               bytes_written := 0 ;
               open_output_file (VMS_spec, file_size) ;
               more := true ;
               WHILE more DO BEGIN
will look like:
               bytes_written := 0 ;
               open_output_file (VMS_spec, file_size) ;
               output_file_open := true ;   { This line is the fix }
               more := true ;
               WHILE more DO BEGIN

This is at about line 280 in my source.
--
Tim Cook,	Systems Administrator, Victoria College Computer Services

"I tested it this time, really!"	"Over 2 billion de-bugged!"
"I take it all back, it's really a program for generating lotto entries."

