[Python-Dev] Problem with 2.3b2 tarfile?

[Skip Montanaro]

    Skip> Next step was to try extracting the tarfile (that generated with
    Skip> -o and -O) on another Solaris 8 system.  That worked fine, so I
    Skip> will assume the problem is on the first machine I tried.

Belay that.  The other machine had GNU tar in /usr/local/bin...  With
/usr/bin/tar I get the same problem.

Off-list John Abel suggested perhaps it might be a path length problem.  I
was more concerned about filenames containing spaces or non-ASCII characters
but didn't find any smoking guns.  Looking at the characters in the
filenames, I didn't see any files whose name wasn't matched by this regular
expression:

    [-:A-Za-z.0-9 _()]+

In addition to several files containing spaces, there is a directory
component named "(vise)" which seems a bit odd, but which should be okay for
tar.

Next check was on the length of things as John had suggested.  The longest
component is only 110 characters:

    ./Mac/OSXResources/app/Resources/English.lproj/Documentation/macpython_ide_tutorial/entering_in_new_window.gif

but is in the directory where tar craps out.  I then generated another
tarfile which excluded just the .../macpython_ide_tutorial directory.  That
extracts fine:

    bash-2.03$ /usr/bin/tar xf ../tmp/Py2.3.tar 
    bash-2.03$ 

Just or Jack, is there any chance we can rearrange the Mac subtree to
shorten up that long path?  I don't know if it's the number of directory
components or the total length of the path that's causing the problem.

In the meantime, perhaps it's worth noting on the website that extracting
the tarfile on some platforms may fail.

Skip