dired-do-compress does not *uncompress* .tgz or .tar.gz files

dired-do-compress does not *uncompress* .tgz or .tar.gz files

[H. Dieter Wilhelm]

Hello,

am I missing something?  When pressing Z in dired on a X.tgz file
dired-do-compress does not uncompress the file instead it compresses it
to an X.tar file even though the function advertises also to uncompress
files.

I'm on GNU Emacs 24.3.93.2 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version
2.24.24) of 2014-08-27

         Dieter
-- 
Best wishes
H. Dieter Wilhelm
Darmstadt, Germany

Re: dired-do-compress does not *uncompress* .tgz or .tar.gz files

[Óscar Fuentes]

dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de (H. Dieter Wilhelm) writes:

> am I missing something?  When pressing Z in dired on a X.tgz file
> dired-do-compress does not uncompress the file instead it compresses it
> to an X.tar file even though the function advertises also to uncompress
> files.

X.tgz (or X.tar.gz) is a compressed X.tar, so dired-do-compress is
behaving as advertised. What do you want is uncompress&untar. I don't
know if dired supports this.

Re: dired-do-compress does not *uncompress* .tgz or .tar.gz files

[Stefan Monnier]

> dired-do-compress does not uncompress the file instead it compresses it
> to an X.tar file even though the function advertises also to uncompress
> files.

X.tar is not compressed: `tar' is only a format that bundles several
files together.


        Stefan

Re: dired-do-compress does not *uncompress* .tgz or .tar.gz files

[Michael Heerdegen]

dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de (H. Dieter Wilhelm) writes:

> Hello,
>
> am I missing something?  When pressing Z in dired on a X.tgz file
> dired-do-compress does not uncompress the file instead it compresses it
> to an X.tar file even though the function advertises also to uncompress
> files.

I think that mechanism is by intent limited to single files.  But a tar
archive can hold a whole directory tree.

You can visit a tar archive, even if gzipped, with tar-mode.  Just hit v
from dired.

Michael.

RE: dired-do-compress does not *uncompress* .tgz or .tar.gz files

[Drew Adams]

> > am I missing something?  When pressing Z in dired on a X.tgz file
> > dired-do-compress does not uncompress the file instead it
> > compresses it to an X.tar file even though the function advertises
> > also to uncompress files.
> 
> I think that mechanism is by intent limited to single files.  But a
> tar archive can hold a whole directory tree.

A couple of people have already explained that a tar archive is
uncompressed, and X.tar is the correct result of uncompressing
X.tgz.

As for `Z': you can apply it to any number of files, not just a
single file.  Just mark the files to be compressed, then `Z'.

But I guess you (Michael) meant something different by "limited to
single files".

Re: dired-do-compress does not *uncompress* .tgz or .tar.gz files

[Michael Heerdegen]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> As for `Z': you can apply it to any number of files, not just a
> single file.  Just mark the files to be compressed, then `Z'.
>
> But I guess you (Michael) meant something different by "limited to
> single files".

I meant it transforms single files to single files.  It's not intended
to create achieves from multiple file, or extract files from such
multi-file archives.

Michael.

RE: dired-do-compress does not *uncompress* .tgz or .tar.gz files

[Drew Adams]

> > As for `Z': you can apply it to any number of files, not just a
> > single file.  Just mark the files to be compressed, then `Z'.
> >
> > But I guess you (Michael) meant something different by "limited to
> > single files".
> 
> I meant it transforms single files to single files.  It's not
> intended to create achieves from multiple file, or extract files
> from such multi-file archives.

Thanks for clarifying.  That's what I thought you meant, and now
it's clear.

Re: dired-do-compress does not *uncompress* .tgz or .tar.gz files

[H. Dieter Wilhelm]

Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> writes:

> dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de (H. Dieter Wilhelm) writes:
>
>> am I missing something?  When pressing Z in dired on a X.tgz file
>> dired-do-compress does not uncompress the file instead it compresses it
>> to an X.tar file even though the function advertises also to uncompress
>> files.

> X.tgz (or X.tar.gz) is a compressed X.tar, so dired-do-compress is
> behaving as advertised.

Sorry for my blindness, this was not my day, you're right!

> What do you want is uncompress&untar.  I don't know if dired supports
> this.

Especially because I don't have any use of raw tar files.  It would be
nice if in dired .tgz files would be untarred and uncompressd on the fly
by default.

Thanks
        Dieter
-- 
Best wishes
H. Dieter Wilhelm
Darmstadt, Germany