Re: Patch: incorrect array offset in backend replication tar header

Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> writes:
> On 09/27/2012 06:30 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Having said all that, I don't think we have a lot of choices here.
>> A "tar format" output option that isn't actually tar format has hardly
>> any excuse to live at all.

> I agree, but it's possibly worth pointing out that GNU tar has no 
> trouble at all processing the erroneous format, and the "file" program 
> on my Linux system has no trouble recognizing it as a tar archive.

Well, they're falling back to assuming that the file is a pre-POSIX
tarfile, which is why you don't see string user/group names for
instance.

> Nevertheless, I think we should fix all live versions of pg_dump make 
> all live versions of pg-restore accept both formats.

I think it's clear that we should make all versions of pg_restore accept
either spelling of the magic string.  It's less clear that we should
change the output of pg_dump in back branches though.  I think the only
reason we'd not get complaints about that is that not that many people
are relying on tar-format output anyway.  Anybody who is would probably
be peeved if version 8.3.21 pg_restore couldn't read the output of
version 8.3.22 pg_dump.
        regards, tom lane