Programmer Humor

32332 readers

151 users here now

Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)

Rules:

Posts must be relevant to programming, programmers, or computer science.
No NSFW content.
Jokes must be in good taste. No hate speech, bigotry, etc.

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

759

tar -vczfx123 ought to do it (imgs.xkcd.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

96 comments fedilink hide all child comments

source

img title="I don't know what's worse--the fact that after 15 years of using tar I still can't keep the flags straight, or that after 15 years of technological advancement I'm still mucking with tar flags that were 15 years old when I started."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 138 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Wouldn't tar --help suffice? Afaik, it returns exit code 0.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Depends. Is it GNU tar, BSD tar or some old school Unix tar?

Double hyphen "long options" are a typical GNU thing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

tar -h?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

~# tar -h
tar: You must specify one of the '-Acdtrux', '--delete' or '--test-label' options
Try 'tar --help' or 'tar --usage' for more information.
***********************************************
WARNING: Self destruct sequence initiated
***********************************************

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

~# tar -h || tar --help

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Ugh. Bsdtar:

-h (c and r modes only) Synonym for -L.

But it has --help too.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That’s why those commands have two?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

Yes, the terse Unix version, which needs to be supported for compatibility, and the more readable GNU long option