On Wed, Jan 26, 2005 at 03:51:33PM +0100, Paul Bijnens wrote:
> Jon LaBadie wrote:
> >
> >It has been a couple of years since I looked at tar,
> >but IIRC two things that give a return code of 2 are
> >   "file changed as we backed it up"
> >   "file disappeared after we made the list of what to backup"
> >
> >These conditions are common on active file systems.
> >Both cause the error message
> >   "error exit delayed from previous errors"
> >
> >which is a return code of 2.
> 
> Consulting sources of gnutar 1.13.25:
> "file changed..." would set exit(2) but is neutralized
> when given the --ignore-failed-read option to tar.
> 

I believe you are correct on a "failed read", i.e. permissions
type changes, but I don't think "file changed ..."is affected
by the --ignore-failed-read option.  I think it still prints
the message, and exits 2 with the "error exit delayed" message.


> Sources of gnutar 1.15.1:
> "file changed...." is never triggering an exit-code different
> from zero  (but warning is printed nevertheless).
> "file shrank ..." however still needs --ignore-failed-read flag
> to be neutralized.

Looks like the RE's ignored need to be revisited.

> 
> The "file disappeared..." is diagnosed as
> "Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory", and that
> one neither sets a exitcode different from zero (in 1.13.25
> and 1.15.1).
> 

With the --ignored-failed-read I'm sure you are correct.

> 
> >The "error exit delayed" situation can be set to be considered
> >"normal" in sendbackup-gnutar.c or it and a few others ignored
> >by defining "IGNORE_TAR_ERRORS" in amanda.h.
> >
> 
> Amanda does pass the --ignore-failed-read option, and thus you
> normally should not need to compile with IGNORE_TAR_ERRORS defined.
> The last one classifies the printed warnings as "normal" instead
> of "strange" and suppresses the STRANGE section in the amanda report.
> And maybe it would ignore other more serious errors too?

These are the 3 messages added by the IGNORE_TAR_ERRORS macro.

    "File .* shrunk by [0-9][0-9]* bytes, padding with zeros"
    "Cannot add file .*: No such file or directory"
    "Error exit delayed from previous errors"

Seem to be directly related to the current discussion.

> 
> Conclusion: the /bin/tar used is not version 1.13.25 or 1.15.1.


Good possibility.

jl
-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
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