extfs changes with mc 4.8.25 regarding '.' '..' in filenames list

dieter d_werner at gmx.net
Wed Oct 21 13:05:10 UTC 2020


Hi,

due to limitations of the tar support built-in in mc (as tracked in
tickets #2201 und #1952) I am using an extfs module to access tar
archives - the one from openSUSE mentioned in ticket #2201.

I noticed that it "stopped working" with mc 4.8.25 which has landed in
openSUSE Tumbleweed:
entering a tar archive which contains files no files are listed
anymore in the panel.

After some debugging I found the cause:
This "untar" module adds "./" at the beginning of the extracted
filenames in order to handle filenames beginning with a blank.

Removing this "./" it works again, except for filenames which start
with a blank - they are listed in the panel but can not be opened or
extracted because tar can not find them in the archive without the
missing blank.

I found that in some other extfs modules (for deb and urar) in mc 4.2.25
also the "./" was removed and I found commit

https://github.com/MidnightCommander/mc/commit/e1a1990055017aac1f1c906df980f3a28683efd4

that . and .. may no longer appear in listed file names.

I am happy that according to ticket #1952 native support for full
featured tar files will come back into mc, but I wonder in general how
extfs modules are now supposed to handle files contained in archives
beginning blanks? Is there some other marker supported for such cases?

Regards,
	Dieter




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