short form of the name, "tape archive," the command to create a [tarball]. also a [tcllib] module for reading and writing tarballs. documentation is at [http://tcllib.sourceforge.net/doc/tar.html]

''There's code to decode and unpack a tar file in the [SDX] starkit utility, unwrap and look at lib/app-sdx/tgz2kit.tcl, it's about 25 lines.'' - [jcw]

The sdx untar does not respect file permissions and owners, nor special files.
[LV] what does ''respect'' mean - that it does not set these values on files being extracted?
Or that it ignores the local directory information and just writes things out? - It does not set owner/group or permissions on the files being extracted and does not create special files such as hard and soft links.

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[DKF]: Tar is also, and coincidentally, a black sticky substance that traps stuff that falls into it (e.g. the La Brea Tar Pits in LA). In computing, this brings on the term "a tar-pit project", which sucks in all effort that goes even close and swallows it all without trace. Avoid tar pits by using [Tcl/Tk]!

[LV] I've tended to refer to this type of effort as a ''black hole''.  I've also heard it referred to as a ''tar baby'' (which refers back to old children's tales of Brer Rabbit and company [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/tar-baby.html].

[ECS]: The first reference I know to "a tar-pit project" is from Fred Brooks' '''The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering''' [http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0201835959] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month].

[GWM] I've also called these 'bucket of worms' projects - every time you move one layer another one slithers into view.  Similar: 'a box of frogs' (originally referring to the way 5-10 year old boys leap about - imagine opening a shoe box with frogs in, out they all come).
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[Category Package]