rust-tar

A Rust implementation of the tar archive utility.

Should I use this?

Probably not. The tar binary that came with your OS has more features and has been tested against millions of archives, use it instead.

So what's it good for?

Building a tool like this is a really good way to learn Rust syntax+features! Some things I learned:

1. How to work with raw binary data
2. How to create iterators over arbitrary data
3. How to parse+validate CLI parameters using StructOpt
4. Integration tests using assert_cmd
5. Rust's built-in unit tests
6. File I/O
7. Option and Result types (I love not having to deal with nullable types and exceptions)

How to use

Run with --help to see the list of options:

./rust-tar --help

rust-tar 0.1.1

USAGE:
    rust-tar [FLAGS] <file-name>

FLAGS:
    -x               Extract mode: extract an archive to disk
    -h, --help       Prints help information
    -t               List mode: list archive contents
    -V, --version    Prints version information

ARGS:
    <file-name>    The path to a tarball

Run with -t to show file contents (without saving to disk), or -x to save to disk:

./rust-tar -t test-files/multiple-files.tar

Read all 3072 bytes from tarball successfully 
Processing file header: 'ascii.txt'
  Decimal checksum: 6310
  Calculated checksum: 6310
  File size in bytes: 11
  File contents: Hello, tar!
Processing file header: 'ascii2.txt'
  Decimal checksum: 6354
  Calculated checksum: 6354
  File size in bytes: 17
  File contents: Hello again, tar!