PEAR::Archive_Tar (artifical) limitations and the incorrect PhpDocumentor tarball

As I mention in bug #21402, there seems to be (at least) one limitation imposed in PEAR::Archive_Tar, namely that stored filenames cannot be longer than 100 chars. This would be OK if the package docs in CVS indicated that it was trying to allow manipulation of old POSIX tar files, but it indicates (in Archive_Tar/docs/Archive_Tar.txt) that: "... The Archive_Tar class helps in creating and managing GNU TAR format files compressed by GNU ZIP or not. ..." So the package tries to be compatible w/ GNU tar. Interestingly enough in the Gnu tar manual it is mentioned: (http://www.gnu.org/manual/tar/html_chapter/tar_8.html#SEC112) "... Traditionally, old tars have a limit of 100 characters. GNU tar attempted two different approaches to overcome this limit, using and extending a format specified by a draft of some P1003.1. The first way was not that successful, and involved `@MaNgLeD@' file names, or such; while a second approach used `././@LongLink' and other tricks, yielding better success. In theory, GNU tar should be able to handle file names of practically unlimited length. ..." Hmm, *practically unlimited length*... This problem (and at least one other bug) have impeded the release through PEAR of PhpDocumentor. This is the first example, other packages that use a deep tree structure will also have the same problem. If we want the pear packager/installer to be used more widely, this artificial limit (and its associated bugs), should be removed (and the bug or bugs fixed/eliminated). Limits with a reason are good, it allows the code to deal with sane cases. Artificial limits that contradict the purpose of a package or that do not have a real reason, are bad. I am not a developer in PhpDocumentor, just a user, and I would love to use something as simple as: % pear install PhpDocumentor and later % pear upgrade PhpDocumentor like I can do w/ many other useful packages from PEAR, sadly I cannot. ===== --- Jesus M. Castagnetto (jcastagnetto@yahoo.com) Research: http://metallo.scripps.edu/ Personal: http://www.castagnetto.org/ __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com