GNU Tar Include and Exclude Behavior

This table represents the results of installcheck/gnutar.pl across multiple GNU Tar versions. Note that this page only deals with include and exclude behavior; see the GNU Tar FAQ entry for other undesirable behaviors.

pat	file	include									exclude
		no args			-wc			-no-wc			no args			-wc			-no-wc
		<1.16	1.16-22	>1.22	<1.16	1.16-22	>1.22	<1.16	1.16-22	>1.22	<1.16	1.16-22	>1.22	<1.16	1.16-22	>1.22	<1.16	1.16-22	>1.22
./A*A	A*A
./A*A	AxA
./A\*A	A*A
./A\*A	AxA
./B?B	B?B
./B?B	BxB
./B\?B	B?B
./B\?B	BxB
./C[C	C[C
./C\[C	C[C
./D\]D	D]D
./D]D	D]D
./E\E	E\E
./E\\E	E\E
./F'F	F'F
./F\'F	F'F
./G"G	G"G
./G\"G	G"G
./H H	H H
./H\ H	H H

This was tested against tar versions 1.15, 1.15.1, 1.16, 1.17, 1.18, 1.19, 1.20, 1.21, 1.22, and 1.23.

There are some interesting patterns to note here:

• Single quotes ('), double quotes ("), and spaces always match themselves exactly, regardless of wildcards.
• Includes
  • Behavior with --no-wildcards is identical to the default behavior.
  • In versions before 1.16, the wildcard option is ignored for includes, and type α wildcard matching is always applied.
  • All versions 1.16 and higher have identical behavior: TODO
• Excludes
  • Behavior with --wildcards is identical to the default behavior.
  • In versions up to 1.23, when wildcards are enabled, type β matching is applied. When wildcards are disabled, they are truly disabled: only literal matches are accepted.
  • All versions before 1.23 have identical behavior: TODO

Matching types mentioned above:

&alpha

Only *?[\ are special, and only special characters can be escaped by \ - otherwise, the escaping backslash is treated literally (e.g., E\E matches against itself, but not against EE). There is a bug with \?, which is treated as \0177 internally.

&beta

Like α, only *?[\ are special, but \ can escape any character, so \X and X will both match X.

To Do

• Explore the inside of character classes: how do you specify ] or \ in a character class? Negation?