Glen writes:

>When extracting a sample file from the archive, I get the error:

>        tar: write error on file "filename": System call error

>but AFTER the file has been extracted!


This is a source of aggravation that affects me with the GNU stuff
too. Here's what's up:

If a file already exists, tar will not recreate it, but will attempt to
use the existing file at "restore" time. If this file was originally
created with 500 records and you try to restore more than 500 records,
you get the above error. If you were to restore 500 or less records,
everything would work as expected.

"But, why does it work correctly with byte stream files?" you ask?

Note that byte stream files are always created with the maximum number
of records (bytes in this case) as 2,147,483,647. So, until the file
is full, there is always room to expand it.