tarfile.py in python 2.4.3 version has a bug that makes it to stop iteration while reading members. If a file's name is longer than 100 bytes, after reading ././@LongLink header of the file in the tar archive, tarfile tries to read the actual header. But if the 100 byte of the file's name ends with "/" and it is a regular file (type is a file type). Tarfile changes it's type to a directory by thinking that it is some old tar archive format's directory member (because it seems to end with a "/"). I created a tar archive to test this case. You can find it in the attachments. My test code does this: #!/usr/bin/python import tarfile import sys tar = tarfile.open(sys.argv[1], "r") tar.list() If I run it with the prepared tar file, i get this output: faik@pardus tmp $ ./tarlist.py longfiles.tar -rwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006-06-21 13:03:59 this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/ -rwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006-06-21 13:06:17 this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/ -rwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006-06-21 13:08:21 this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/ -rw-r--r-- faik/users 19 2006-06-21 13:08:41 this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/NEWS But if I run tar(1) with tvf options, i get this output: faik@pardus tmp $ tar tvf longfiles.tar drwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006-06-21 13:03:59 this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/ drwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006-06-21 13:06:17 this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/ drwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006-06-21 13:08:21 this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/ -rw-r--r-- faik/users 19 2006-06-21 13:08:41 this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/NEWS -rw-r--r-- faik/users 18 2006-06-21 13:10:10 this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/COPYING -rw-r--r-- faik/users 26 2006-06-21 13:09:05 this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/README tarfile.py ends iteration with this member file: "this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/NEWS". Because the full directory path name length that contains the NEWS file is exactly 100 bytes long. There is also an attachment for the fix of the bug.
