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?