Archive::TarGzip 0.03

Archive::TarGzip is a Perl module to save and restore files to and from compressed tape archives (tar).

SYNOPSIS

######
# Subroutine Interface
#
use Archive::TarGzip qw(parse_header tar untar);

$tar_file = tar(@file, @options);
$tar_file = tar(@file);

$success = untar(@file);
$success = untar(@file, @options);

%tar_header = parse_header($buffer);

######
# File subroutines
#
use Archive::TarGzip;

tie *TAR_FILEHANDLE, Tie::Layers
tie *TAR_FILEHANDLE, Tie::Layers, @options

$success = open(TAR_FILEHANDLE, $tar_file);
$success = open(TAR_FILEHANDLE, $mode, $tar_file);

$success = print TAR_FILEHANDLE $file_name;
$success = print TAR_FILEHANDLE $file_name, $file_contents;

%tar_header = ;

$success = close(TAR_FILEHANDLE);

######
# Object
#
tie *TAR_FILEHANDLE, Tie::Layers;
tie *TAR_FILEHANDLE, Tie::Layers, @options;

$tar = tied *TAR_FILEHANDLE;
$tar = new Archive::TarGzip( );
$tar = new Archive::TarGzip(@options);

$success = $tar->OPEN( $tar_file, @options);
$success = $tar->OPEN( $mode, $tar_file, @options);

$success = $tar->PRINT($file_name);
$success = $tar->PRINT($file_name, $file_contents);

%tar_header = $tar->READLINE(@options);
%tar_header = $tar->READLINE(@file, @options);

$status = $tar->target( $buffer, $size);
$success = $tar->CLOSE();

The Archive::TarGzip module provides tar subroutine to archive a list of files in an archive file in the tar format. The archive file may be optionally compressed using the gzip compression routines. The Archive::TarGzip module also provides a untar subroutine that can extract the files from the tar or tar/gzip archive files. The tar and untar top level subroutines use methods from the Archive::TarGzip class.

The Archive::TarGzip class has many similarities to the very mature Archive::Tar class being at least three years older. The newer Archive::TarGzip relied very heavy on the work of the author of the Archive::Tar and in many instance the Archive::Tar is a better solution.

Altough the underlying tar file format is the same and similar code is used to access the data in the underlying tar files, the interace bewteen the two are completely different. The Archive::TarGzip is built on a Tie File Handle type interface. The nthe Archive::TarGzip provide means to access individual files within the archive file without bringing the entire archive file into memory. When the gzip compression option is active, the compression is performed on the fly without creating an intermediate uncompressed tar file.