Archive::Tar->new( [$file, $compressed] )

Returns a new Tar object. If given any arguments, new() calls the read() method automatically, passing on the arguments provided to the read() method.

If new() is invoked with arguments and the read() method fails for any reason, new() returns undef.

$tar->read ( $filename|$handle, [$compressed, {opt => 'val'}] )

Read the given tar file into memory. The first argument can either be the name of a file or a reference to an already open filehandle (or an IO::Zlib object if it's compressed)

The "read" will replace any previous content in $tar!

The second argument may be considered optional, but remains for backwards compatibility. Archive::Tar now looks at the file magic to determine what class should be used to open the file and will transparently Do The Right Thing.

Archive::Tar will warn if you try to pass a bzip2 / xz compressed file and the IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2 / IO::Uncompress::UnXz are not available and simply return.

Note that you can currently not pass a "gzip" compressed filehandle, which is not opened with "IO::Zlib", a "bzip2" compressed filehandle, which is not opened with "IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2", a "xz" compressed filehandle, which is not opened with "IO::Uncompress::UnXz", nor a string containing the full archive information (either compressed or uncompressed). These are worth while features, but not currently implemented. See the "TODO" section.

The third argument can be a hash reference with options. Note that all options are case-sensitive.

limit

Do not read more than "limit" files. This is useful if you have very big archives, and are only interested in the first few files.

filter

Can be set to a regular expression. Only files with names that match the expression will be read.

md5

Set to 1 and the md5sum of files will be returned (instead of file data)
my $iter = Archive::Tar->iter( $file, 1, {md5 => 1} );
while( my $f = $iter->() ) {
print $f->data . "\t" . $f->full_path . $/;
}

extract

If set to true, immediately extract entries when reading them. This gives you the same memory break as the "extract_archive" function. Note however that entries will not be read into memory, but written straight to disk. This means no "Archive::Tar::File" objects are created for you to inspect.

All files are stored internally as "Archive::Tar::File" objects. Please consult the Archive::Tar::File documentation for details.

Returns the number of files read in scalar context, and a list of "Archive::Tar::File" objects in list context.

$tar->contains_file( $filename )

Check if the archive contains a certain file. It will return true if the file is in the archive, false otherwise.

Note however, that this function does an exact match using "eq" on the full path. So it cannot compensate for case-insensitive file- systems or compare 2 paths to see if they would point to the same underlying file.

$tar->extract( [@filenames] )

Write files whose names are equivalent to any of the names in @filenames to disk, creating subdirectories as necessary. This might not work too well under VMS. Under MacPerl, the file's modification time will be converted to the MacOS zero of time, and appropriate conversions will be done to the path. However, the length of each element of the path is not inspected to see whether it's longer than MacOS currently allows (32 characters).

If "extract" is called without a list of file names, the entire contents of the archive are extracted.

Returns a list of filenames extracted.

$tar->extract_file( $file, [$extract_path] )

Write an entry, whose name is equivalent to the file name provided to disk. Optionally takes a second parameter, which is the full native path (including filename) the entry will be written to.

For example:

$tar->extract_file( 'name/in/archive', 'name/i/want/to/give/it' );
$tar->extract_file( $at_file_object,   'name/i/want/to/give/it' );

Returns true on success, false on failure.

$tar->list_files( [\@properties] )

Returns a list of the names of all the files in the archive.

If list_files() is passed an array reference as its first argument it returns a list of hash references containing the requested properties of each file. The following list of properties is supported: name, size, mtime (last modified date), mode, uid, gid, linkname, uname, gname, devmajor, devminor, prefix.

Passing an array reference containing only one element, 'name', is special cased to return a list of names rather than a list of hash references, making it equivalent to calling "list_files" without arguments.

$tar->get_files( [@filenames] )

Returns the "Archive::Tar::File" objects matching the filenames provided. If no filename list was passed, all "Archive::Tar::File" objects in the current Tar object are returned.

Please refer to the "Archive::Tar::File" documentation on how to handle these objects.

$tar->get_content( $file )

Return the content of the named file.

$tar->replace_content( $file, $content )

Make the string $content be the content for the file named $file.

$tar->rename( $file, $new_name )

Rename the file of the in-memory archive to $new_name.

Note that you must specify a Unix path for $new_name, since per tar standard, all files in the archive must be Unix paths.

Returns true on success and false on failure.

$tar->chmod( $file, $mode )

Change mode of $file to $mode.

Returns true on success and false on failure.

$tar->chown( $file, $uname [, $gname] )

Change owner $file to $uname and $gname.

Returns true on success and false on failure.

$tar->remove (@filenamelist)

Removes any entries with names matching any of the given filenames from the in-memory archive. Returns a list of "Archive::Tar::File" objects that remain.

$tar->clear

"clear" clears the current in-memory archive. This effectively gives you a 'blank' object, ready to be filled again. Note that "clear" only has effect on the object, not the underlying tarfile.

$tar->write ( [$file, $compressed, $prefix] )

Write the in-memory archive to disk. The first argument can either be the name of a file or a reference to an already open filehandle (a GLOB reference).

The second argument is used to indicate compression. You can compress using "gzip", "bzip2" or "xz". If you pass a digit, it's assumed to be the "gzip" compression level (between 1 and 9), but the use of constants is preferred:

# write a gzip compressed file
$tar->write( 'out.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP );
# write a bzip compressed file
$tar->write( 'out.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP );
# write a xz compressed file
$tar->write( 'out.txz', COMPRESS_XZ );

Note that when you pass in a filehandle, the compression argument is ignored, as all files are printed verbatim to your filehandle. If you wish to enable compression with filehandles, use an "IO::Zlib", "IO::Compress::Bzip2" or "IO::Compress::Xz" filehandle instead.

The third argument is an optional prefix. All files will be tucked away in the directory you specify as prefix. So if you have files 'a' and 'b' in your archive, and you specify 'foo' as prefix, they will be written to the archive as 'foo/a' and 'foo/b'.

If no arguments are given, "write" returns the entire formatted archive as a string, which could be useful if you'd like to stuff the archive into a socket or a pipe to gzip or something.

$tar->add_files( @filenamelist )

Takes a list of filenames and adds them to the in-memory archive.

The path to the file is automatically converted to a Unix like equivalent for use in the archive, and, if on MacOS, the file's modification time is converted from the MacOS epoch to the Unix epoch. So tar archives created on MacOS with Archive::Tar can be read both with tar on Unix and applications like suntar or Stuffit Expander on MacOS.

Be aware that the file's type/creator and resource fork will be lost, which is usually what you want in cross-platform archives.

Instead of a filename, you can also pass it an existing "Archive::Tar::File" object from, for example, another archive. The object will be clone, and effectively be a copy of the original, not an alias.

Returns a list of "Archive::Tar::File" objects that were just added.

$tar->add_data ( $filename, $data, [$opthashref] )

Takes a filename, a scalar full of data and optionally a reference to a hash with specific options.

Will add a file to the in-memory archive, with name $filename and content $data. Specific properties can be set using $opthashref. The following list of properties is supported: name, size, mtime (last modified date), mode, uid, gid, linkname, uname, gname, devmajor, devminor, prefix, type. (On MacOS, the file's path and modification times are converted to Unix equivalents.)

Valid values for the file type are the following constants defined by Archive::Tar::Constant:

FILE

Regular file.

HARDLINK

SYMLINK

Hard and symbolic ("soft") links; linkname should specify target.

CHARDEV

BLOCKDEV

Character and block devices. devmajor and devminor should specify the major and minor device numbers.

DIR

Directory.

FIFO

FIFO (named pipe).

SOCKET

Socket.

Returns the "Archive::Tar::File" object that was just added, or "undef" on failure.

$tar->error( [$BOOL] )

Returns the current error string (usually, the last error reported). If a true value was specified, it will give the "Carp::longmess" equivalent of the error, in effect giving you a stacktrace.

For backwards compatibility, this error is also available as $Archive::Tar::error although it is much recommended you use the method call instead.

$tar->setcwd( $cwd );

"Archive::Tar" needs to know the current directory, and it will run Cwd::cwd() every time it extracts a relative entry from the tarfile and saves it in the file system. (As of version 1.30, however, "Archive::Tar" will use the speed optimization described below automatically, so it's only relevant if you're using extract_file()).

Since "Archive::Tar" doesn't change the current directory internally while it is extracting the items in a tarball, all calls to Cwd::cwd() can be avoided if we can guarantee that the current directory doesn't get changed externally.

To use this performance boost, set the current directory via

use Cwd;
$tar->setcwd( cwd() );

once before calling a function like "extract_file" and "Archive::Tar" will use the current directory setting from then on and won't call Cwd::cwd() internally.

To switch back to the default behaviour, use

$tar->setcwd( undef );

and "Archive::Tar" will call Cwd::cwd() internally again.

If you're using "Archive::Tar"'s extract() method, setcwd() will be called for you.

Archive::Tar->create_archive($file, $compressed, @filelist)

Creates a tar file from the list of files provided. The first argument can either be the name of the tar file to create or a reference to an open file handle (e.g. a GLOB reference).

The second argument is used to indicate compression. You can compress using "gzip", "bzip2" or "xz". If you pass a digit, it's assumed to be the "gzip" compression level (between 1 and 9), but the use of constants is preferred:

# write a gzip compressed file
Archive::Tar->create_archive( 'out.tgz', COMPRESS_GZIP, @filelist );
# write a bzip compressed file
Archive::Tar->create_archive( 'out.tbz', COMPRESS_BZIP, @filelist );
# write a xz compressed file
Archive::Tar->create_archive( 'out.txz', COMPRESS_XZ, @filelist );

Note that when you pass in a filehandle, the compression argument is ignored, as all files are printed verbatim to your filehandle. If you wish to enable compression with filehandles, use an "IO::Zlib", "IO::Compress::Bzip2" or "IO::Compress::Xz" filehandle instead.

The remaining arguments list the files to be included in the tar file. These files must all exist. Any files which don't exist or can't be read are silently ignored.

If the archive creation fails for any reason, "create_archive" will return false. Please use the "error" method to find the cause of the failure.

Note that this method does not write "on the fly" as it were; it still reads all the files into memory before writing out the archive. Consult the FAQ below if this is a problem.

Archive::Tar->iter( $filename, [ $compressed, {opt => $val} ] )

Returns an iterator function that reads the tar file without loading it all in memory. Each time the function is called it will return the next file in the tarball. The files are returned as "Archive::Tar::File" objects. The iterator function returns the empty list once it has exhausted the files contained.

The second argument can be a hash reference with options, which are identical to the arguments passed to read().

Example usage:

my $next = Archive::Tar->iter( "example.tar.gz", 1, {filter => qr/\.pm$/} );
while( my $f = $next->() ) {
    print $f->name, "\n";
    $f->extract or warn "Extraction failed";
    # ....
}

Archive::Tar->list_archive($file, $compressed, [\@properties])

Returns a list of the names of all the files in the archive. The first argument can either be the name of the tar file to list or a reference to an open file handle (e.g. a GLOB reference).

If list_archive() is passed an array reference as its third argument it returns a list of hash references containing the requested properties of each file. The following list of properties is supported: full_path, name, size, mtime (last modified date), mode, uid, gid, linkname, uname, gname, devmajor, devminor, prefix, type.

See "Archive::Tar::File" for details about supported properties.

Passing an array reference containing only one element, 'name', is special cased to return a list of names rather than a list of hash references.

Archive::Tar->extract_archive($file, $compressed)

Extracts the contents of the tar file. The first argument can either be the name of the tar file to create or a reference to an open file handle (e.g. a GLOB reference). All relative paths in the tar file will be created underneath the current working directory.

"extract_archive" will return a list of files it extracted. If the archive extraction fails for any reason, "extract_archive" will return false. Please use the "error" method to find the cause of the failure.

$bool = Archive::Tar->has_io_string

Returns true if we currently have "IO::String" support loaded.

Either "IO::String" or "perlio" support is needed to support writing stringified archives. Currently, "perlio" is the preferred method, if available.

See the "GLOBAL VARIABLES" section to see how to change this preference.

$bool = Archive::Tar->has_perlio

Returns true if we currently have "perlio" support loaded.

This requires "perl-5.8" or higher, compiled with "perlio"

Either "IO::String" or "perlio" support is needed to support writing stringified archives. Currently, "perlio" is the preferred method, if available.

See the "GLOBAL VARIABLES" section to see how to change this preference.

$bool = Archive::Tar->has_zlib_support

Returns true if "Archive::Tar" can extract "zlib" compressed archives

$bool = Archive::Tar->has_bzip2_support

Returns true if "Archive::Tar" can extract "bzip2" compressed archives

$bool = Archive::Tar->has_xz_support

Returns true if "Archive::Tar" can extract "xz" compressed archives

Archive::Tar->can_handle_compressed_files

A simple checking routine, which will return true if "Archive::Tar" is able to uncompress compressed archives on the fly with "IO::Zlib", "IO::Compress::Bzip2" and "IO::Compress::Xz" or false if not both are installed.

You can use this as a shortcut to determine whether "Archive::Tar" will do what you think before passing compressed archives to its "read" method.

$Archive::Tar::FOLLOW_SYMLINK

Set this variable to 1 to make "Archive::Tar" effectively make a copy of the file when extracting. Default is 0, which means the symlink stays intact. Of course, you will have to pack the file linked to as well.

This option is checked when you write out the tarfile using "write" or "create_archive".

This works just like "/bin/tar"'s "-h" option.

$Archive::Tar::CHOWN

By default, "Archive::Tar" will try to "chown" your files if it is able to. In some cases, this may not be desired. In that case, set this variable to 0 to disable "chown"-ing, even if it were possible.

The default is 1.

$Archive::Tar::CHMOD

By default, "Archive::Tar" will try to "chmod" your files to whatever mode was specified for the particular file in the archive. In some cases, this may not be desired. In that case, set this variable to 0 to disable "chmod"-ing.

The default is 1.

$Archive::Tar::SAME_PERMISSIONS

When, $Archive::Tar::CHMOD is enabled, this setting controls whether the permissions on files from the archive are used without modification of if they are filtered by removing any setid bits and applying the current umask.

The default is 1 for the root user and 0 for normal users.

$Archive::Tar::DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX

By default, "Archive::Tar" will try to put paths that are over 100 characters in the "prefix" field of your tar header, as defined per POSIX-standard. However, some (older) tar programs do not implement this spec. To retain compatibility with these older or non-POSIX compliant versions, you can set the $DO_NOT_USE_PREFIX variable to a true value, and "Archive::Tar" will use an alternate way of dealing with paths over 100 characters by using the "GNU Extended Header" feature.

Note that clients who do not support the "GNU Extended Header" feature will not be able to read these archives. Such clients include tars on "Solaris", "Irix" and "AIX".

The default is 0.

$Archive::Tar::DEBUG

Set this variable to 1 to always get the "Carp::longmess" output of the warnings, instead of the regular "carp". This is the same message you would get by doing:

$tar->error(1);

Defaults to 0.

$Archive::Tar::WARN

Set this variable to 0 if you do not want any warnings printed. Personally I recommend against doing this, but people asked for the option. Also, be advised that this is of course not threadsafe.

Defaults to 1.

$Archive::Tar::error

Holds the last reported error. Kept for historical reasons, but its use is very much discouraged. Use the error() method instead:

warn $tar->error unless $tar->extract;

Note that in older versions of this module, the error() method would return an effectively global value even when called an instance method as above. This has since been fixed, and multiple instances of "Archive::Tar" now have separate error strings.

$Archive::Tar::INSECURE_EXTRACT_MODE

This variable indicates whether "Archive::Tar" should allow files to be extracted outside their current working directory.

Allowing this could have security implications, as a malicious tar archive could alter or replace any file the extracting user has permissions to. Therefor, the default is to not allow insecure extractions.

If you trust the archive, or have other reasons to allow the archive to write files outside your current working directory, set this variable to "true".

Note that this is a backwards incompatible change from version 1.36 and before.

$Archive::Tar::HAS_PERLIO

This variable holds a boolean indicating if we currently have "perlio" support loaded. This will be enabled for any perl greater than 5.8 compiled with "perlio".

If you feel strongly about disabling it, set this variable to "false". Note that you will then need "IO::String" installed to support writing stringified archives.

Don't change this variable unless you really know what you're doing.

$Archive::Tar::HAS_IO_STRING

This variable holds a boolean indicating if we currently have "IO::String" support loaded. This will be enabled for any perl that has a loadable "IO::String" module.

If you feel strongly about disabling it, set this variable to "false". Note that you will then need "perlio" support from your perl to be able to write stringified archives.

Don't change this variable unless you really know what you're doing.

$Archive::Tar::ZERO_PAD_NUMBERS

This variable holds a boolean indicating if we will create zero padded numbers for "size", "mtime" and "checksum". The default is 0, indicating that we will create space padded numbers. Added for compatibility with "busybox" implementations.

Tuning the way RESOLVE_SYMLINK will works

You can tune the behaviour by setting the $Archive::Tar::RESOLVE_SYMLINK variable, or $ENV{PERL5_AT_RESOLVE_SYMLINK} before loading the module Archive::Tar.

Values can be one of the following:

none

Disable this mechanism and failed as it was in previous version (<1.88)

speed (default)

If you prefer speed this will read again the whole archive using read() so all entries will be available

memory

If you prefer memory

Limitation: It won't work for terminal, pipe or sockets or every non seekable source.

$Archive::Tar::EXTRACT_BLOCK_SIZE

This variable holds an integer with the block size that should be used when writing files during extraction. It defaults to 1 GiB. Please note that this cannot be arbitrarily large since some operating systems limit the number of bytes that can be written in one call to write(2), so if this is too large, extraction may fail with an error.