Bug#420961: file-roller: ignores empty directories in archives

[Hans-Juergen Becker]

Package: file-roller
Version: 2.14.4-3
Severity: important


file-roller doesn't handle empty directories in archives the way i would
expect it.

For an example try to open/extract the file
/usr/share/doc/diploma/examples/diploma_1.tar.gz

(it's found in the "diploma" package)

The archive consist of several empty directories which the included
makefile relies on and fails when they are not there.

But file-roller doesn't show the empty directories and does not extract
them. It only creates directories which contain files.

This goes even further:

When you create an archive of a directory with empty subdirectories via
nautilus' context menu, the empty subdirectories aren't included in the
archive.

Example:

hjb at nobackstein:~$ tree test_dir
test_dir
|-- empty_dir
`-- nonempty_dir
    `-- iAmAFile

    2 directories, 1 file

Now create test_dir.tar.gz via nautilus' context menu.

backstein:~$ tar tvzf test_dir.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- hjb/hjb   0  2007-04-25 15:32 test_dir/nonempty_dir/iAmAFile

You see: "empty_dir" is missing.

I've also tested it with .zip archives, which shows the same behavior.

I can't find it mentioned in the documentation that this is expected
behaviour, and if it is, there should at least be a configuration switch
to change it.

Thanks and greets,
Hans

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages file-roller depends on:
ii  bzip2                       1.0.3-6      high-quality block-sorting file co
ii  gconf2                      2.16.1-1     GNOME configuration database syste
ii  gzip                        1.3.9-2      The GNU compression utility
ii  libatk1.0-0                 1.12.4-3     The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbonobo2-0                2.14.0-4     Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libc6                       2.3.6.ds1-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2                   1.2.4-4      The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libfontconfig1              2.4.2-1.2    generic font configuration library
ii  libgconf2-4                 2.16.1-1     GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglade2-0                 1:2.6.0-4    library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0                2.12.4-2     The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome2-0                 2.16.0-2     The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomeui-0                2.14.1-3     The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0              1:2.14.2-7   GNOME virtual file-system (runtime
ii  libgtk2.0-0                 2.8.20-7     The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libnautilus-extension1      2.14.3-11+b1 libraries for nautilus components 
ii  liborbit2                   1:2.14.7-0.1 libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpango1.0-0               1.14.8-5     Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0                    1.10-3       lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libx11-6                    2:1.0.3-7    X11 client-side library
ii  libxcursor1                 1.1.7-4      X cursor management library
ii  libxext6                    1:1.0.1-2    X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxfixes3                  1:4.0.1-5    X11 miscellaneous 'fixes' extensio
ii  libxi6                      1:1.0.1-4    X11 Input extension library
ii  libxinerama1                1:1.0.1-4.1  X11 Xinerama extension library
ii  libxrandr2                  2:1.1.0.2-5  X11 RandR extension library
ii  libxrender1                 1:0.9.1-3    X Rendering Extension client libra
ii  tar                         1.16.1-1     GNU tar
ii  unzip                       5.52-9       De-archiver for .zip files
ii  zip                         2.32-1       Archiver for .zip files

Versions of packages file-roller recommends:
pn  arj                           <none>     (no description available)
pn  lzop                          <none>     (no description available)
ii  mkisofs                       9:1.1.4-1  Dummy transition package for genis
pn  ncompress                     <none>     (no description available)
pn  p7zip | p7zip-full            <none>     (no description available)
pn  rpm                           <none>     (no description available)
ii  sharutils                     1:4.2.1-15 shar, unshar, uuencode, uudecode

-- no debconf information