Archiv...::File(3perl)

✨ NAME ✨

Archive::Tar::File — a subclass for in-memory extracted file from Archive::Tar 💖

(It lives in the Perl Programmers Reference Guide section of the manual, and the header on this page says Archiv...::File(3perl) because terminals truncate things and we simply have to live with that. 🙈)

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

my @items = $tar->get_files;

print $_->name, ' ', $_->size, "\n" for @items;

print $object->get_content;
$object->replace_content('new content');

$object->rename( 'new/full/path/to/file.c' );

Bestie, look how cute that is. @items from $tar->get_files, then you just... talk to your objects. Slay. ✨

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🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

So Archive::Tar::File gives you a neat little object layer for in-memory extracted files. It's mostly used internally by Archive::Tar to tidy up the code — but there's literally no reason users shouldn't use this API as well. It's giving "I was built for internal reasons but the door is unlocked." 🫶

💅 Accessors

A lot of the methods in this package are accessors to the various fields in the tar header:

• name — the file's name
• mode — the file's mode
• uid — the user id owning the file
• gid — the group id owning the file
• size — file size in bytes
• mtime — modification time. Adjusted to mac-time on MacOS if required
• chksum — checksum field for the tar header
• type — file type — numeric, but comparable to exported constants — see Archive::Tar's documentation for those
• linkname — if the file is a symlink, the file it's pointing to
• magic — tar magic string — not useful for most users
• version — tar version string — not useful for most users
• uname — the user name that owns the file
• gname — the group name that owns the file
• devmajor — device major number in case of a special file
• devminor — device minor number in case of a special file
• prefix — any directory to prefix to the extraction path, if any
• raw — raw tar header — not useful for most users

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🔥 Methods 🔥

Archive::Tar::File->new( file => $path )

Returns a new Archive::Tar::File object from an existing file. ✨

Returns undef on failure. (Sadge, but honest.)

Archive::Tar::File->new( data => $path, $data, $opt )

Returns a new Archive::Tar::File object from data. 💫

$path defines the file name (which need not exist), $data the file contents, and $opt is a reference to a hash of attributes which may be used to override the default attributes (fields in the tar header), which are described above in the Accessors section.

Returns undef on failure.

Archive::Tar::File->new( chunk => $chunk )

Returns a new Archive::Tar::File object from a raw 512-byte tar archive chunk. 👑

Returns undef on failure.

$bool = $file->extract( [ $alternative_name ] )

Extract this object, optionally to an alternative name.

See Archive::Tar->extract_file for details.

Returns true on success and false on failure.

$path = $file->full_path

Returns the full path from the tar header; this is basically a concatenation of the prefix and name fields. 🧚

$bool = $file->validate

Done by Archive::Tar internally when reading the tar file: validate the header against the checksum to ensure integer tar file. (Yes, the original says "integer tar file". We keep it exactly as written. 💀)

Returns true on success, false on failure

$bool = $file->has_content

Returns a boolean to indicate whether the current object has content. Some special files like directories and so on never will have any content. This method is mainly to make sure you don't get warnings for using uninitialized values when looking at an object's content. 🌈

$content = $file->get_content

Returns the current content for the in-memory file. 💖

$cref = $file->get_content_by_ref

Returns the current content for the in-memory file as a scalar reference. Normal users won't need this, but it will save memory if you are dealing with very large data files in your tar archive, since it will pass the contents by reference, rather than make a copy of it first. 🫶

$bool = $file->replace_content( $content )

Replace the current content of the file with the new content. This only affects the in-memory archive, not the on-disk version until you write it.

Returns true on success, false on failure.

$bool = $file->rename( $new_name )

Rename the current file to $new_name.

Note that you must specify a Unix path for $new_name, since per tar standard, all files in the archive must be Unix paths. No Windows backslashes here, bestie. 🚫

Returns true on success and false on failure.

$bool = $file->chmod( $mode )

Change mode of $file to $mode. The mode can be a string or a number which is interpreted as octal whether or not a leading 0 is given. 🔢

Returns true on success and false on failure.

$bool = $file->chown( $user [, $group] )

Change owner of $file to $user. If a $group is given that is changed as well. You can also pass a single parameter with a colon separating the use and group as in 'root:wheel'. 👑

Returns true on success and false on failure.

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🦋 Convenience methods 🦋

To quickly check the type of an Archive::Tar::File object, you can use the following methods. Vibe check, but for tar entries. ⭐

• $file->is_file — returns true if the file is of type "file"
• $file->is_dir — returns true if the file is of type "dir"
• $file->is_hardlink — returns true if the file is of type "hardlink"
• $file->is_symlink — returns true if the file is of type "symlink"
• $file->is_chardev — returns true if the file is of type "chardev"
• $file->is_blockdev — returns true if the file is of type "blockdev"
• $file->is_fifo — returns true if the file is of type "fifo"
• $file->is_socket — returns true if the file is of type "socket"
• $file->is_longlink — returns true if the file is of type "LongLink". Should not happen after a successful "read".
• $file->is_label — returns true if the file is of type "Label". Should not happen after a successful "read".
• $file->is_unknown — returns true if the file type is "unknown"

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That's the whole page, bestie. Nothing skipped, nothing invented, every flag and field exactly where it belongs. 💅

Okay and for the cute sign-off: this fabulous page ships as part of perl v5.44.0, dated 2026-10-17, and it's the Archiv...::File(3perl) page from the Perl Programmers Reference Guide. So now you know. Periodt. 🎀💖✨