🚀 go-pugleaf

>> However, the one that comes on the NeXT in /usr/bin/gnutar doesn't
>> really fix the problem exactly.  When it encounters a path that is too
>> long it converts it to something like %%mangled1 and displays this info
>> on the terminal window.  You have to make a note of it in order to
>> recover the file to the right place.

No, you don't have to make a note of anything.  That information also
goes into a special file at the end of the tar file, and that information
is used automatically by gnutar to rename all the mangled names to their
correct, > 100 character names.

>> Somebody says this is an older
>> version of gnutar so a newer version might do the right thing. 

The gnutar in 3.0 is an older version, and it is true that the newer
versions work better, since they store that name closer to the file
instead of at the end of the tar file, which facilitates extracting
individual files.  But for entire archive creation and extraction, the
gnutar in 3.0 works for long names.

Mark Adler
madler@cco.caltech.edu