No example of how to use tar-extra.

[martinhbramwell]

I cannot get --tar-extra to work.

Could you please add a usage example to your README.

I have a tried simply ...

makeself --tar-extra --preserve-permissions  etc etc

... but the result is a new archive created called --preserve-permissions and the following error :

tar: -: Cannot stat: No such file or directory
tar: ./--preserve-permissions: file is the archive; not dumped
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

[megastep]

What OS are you using this on? Is it the current version from git or from some other package?

[martinhbramwell]

Ok, I am mystified. That happened in a virtual machine with Ubuntu 14.04. So, I tried it in another, and found that privileges are preserved by default as I wanted, and no need to use --tar-extra.

I'd been doing a lot of experimentation with apt-get installations in the other machine, so perhaps I hosed something,

I believe I installed your version 2.2.0 with apt-get . But, possibly I was trying to run it from a git cloned directory.

Makeself is an impressive tool, if I may say so. Thank you!

[Gwindalmir]

I second a usage example.
I'm using the github master (2.2.0) on Centos 6, and it all works great, except for the --tar-extra option.

I'm trying to add the following options: --exclude=.svn --owner=root --group=root
I've tried:
--tar-extra "--exclude=.svn --owner=root --group=root"
--tar-extra --exclude=.svn --owner=root --group=root
--tar-extra --exclude=.svn --tar-extra --owner=root --tar-extra --group=root
--tar-extra --exclude=.svn

I don't even care about the permissions as much as the exclude option. I can see during the output that it still includes the directories I wanted to exclude.

This is a great tool, and I can work around the issue, but I'd like to use the options if possible.

Edit: Alternately, I'd like an option to embed an existing archive. :-)
Edit2: User error, if I specify --tar-extra as the first argument in the command, it works. I was placing it where the script args are supposed to be.
The following works:

makeself.sh --tar-extra "--exclude=.svn --owner=root" ....