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-rw-r--r--Doc/library/shutil.rst6
-rw-r--r--Doc/library/tarfile.rst23
2 files changed, 17 insertions, 12 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/library/shutil.rst b/Doc/library/shutil.rst
index 587be3b..2dc872f 100644
--- a/Doc/library/shutil.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/shutil.rst
@@ -559,6 +559,10 @@ provided. They rely on the :mod:`zipfile` and :mod:`tarfile` modules.
The *verbose* argument is unused and deprecated.
+ .. versionchanged:: 3.8
+ The modern pax (POSIX.1-2001) format is now used instead of
+ the legacy GNU format for archives created with ``format="tar"``.
+
.. function:: get_archive_formats()
@@ -568,7 +572,7 @@ provided. They rely on the :mod:`zipfile` and :mod:`tarfile` modules.
By default :mod:`shutil` provides these formats:
- *zip*: ZIP file (if the :mod:`zlib` module is available).
- - *tar*: uncompressed tar file.
+ - *tar*: Uncompressed tar file. Uses POSIX.1-2001 pax format for new archives.
- *gztar*: gzip'ed tar-file (if the :mod:`zlib` module is available).
- *bztar*: bzip2'ed tar-file (if the :mod:`bz2` module is available).
- *xztar*: xz'ed tar-file (if the :mod:`lzma` module is available).
diff --git a/Doc/library/tarfile.rst b/Doc/library/tarfile.rst
index c7012a7..f25af8c 100644
--- a/Doc/library/tarfile.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/tarfile.rst
@@ -231,9 +231,9 @@ details.
The default format for creating archives. This is currently :const:`PAX_FORMAT`.
- .. versionchanged:: 3.8
- The default format for new archives was changed to
- :const:`PAX_FORMAT` from :const:`GNU_FORMAT`.
+ .. versionchanged:: 3.8
+ The default format for new archives was changed to
+ :const:`PAX_FORMAT` from :const:`GNU_FORMAT`.
.. seealso::
@@ -813,8 +813,8 @@ Supported tar formats
There are three tar formats that can be created with the :mod:`tarfile` module:
* The POSIX.1-1988 ustar format (:const:`USTAR_FORMAT`). It supports filenames
- up to a length of at best 256 characters and linknames up to 100 characters. The
- maximum file size is 8 GiB. This is an old and limited but widely
+ up to a length of at best 256 characters and linknames up to 100 characters.
+ The maximum file size is 8 GiB. This is an old and limited but widely
supported format.
* The GNU tar format (:const:`GNU_FORMAT`). It supports long filenames and
@@ -826,14 +826,15 @@ There are three tar formats that can be created with the :mod:`tarfile` module:
format with virtually no limits. It supports long filenames and linknames, large
files and stores pathnames in a portable way. Modern tar implementations,
including GNU tar, bsdtar/libarchive and star, fully support extended *pax*
- features; some older or unmaintained libraries may not, but should treat
+ features; some old or unmaintained libraries may not, but should treat
*pax* archives as if they were in the universally-supported *ustar* format.
+ It is the current default format for new archives.
- The *pax* format is an extension to the existing *ustar* format. It uses extra
- headers for information that cannot be stored otherwise. There are two flavours
- of pax headers: Extended headers only affect the subsequent file header, global
- headers are valid for the complete archive and affect all following files. All
- the data in a pax header is encoded in *UTF-8* for portability reasons.
+ It extends the existing *ustar* format with extra headers for information
+ that cannot be stored otherwise. There are two flavours of pax headers:
+ Extended headers only affect the subsequent file header, global
+ headers are valid for the complete archive and affect all following files.
+ All the data in a pax header is encoded in *UTF-8* for portability reasons.
There are some more variants of the tar format which can be read, but not
created: