The pear/archive_tar is a PHP package that manages tar files. It offers the capability to create, extract, list, and add to tar files. What makes this package particularly distinct is its compatibility with different types of compression such as gzip, bzip2, and lzma2. The gzip support functionality is provided if PHP has the zlib extension built-in or loaded. Similarly, Bz2 and Lzma2 compression are also supported but require the bz2 and xz extensions respectively.
To make use of the pear/archive_tar package, first, you need to install it. You can install it from scratch by using $ pear install package.xml or upgrade an existing installation using $ pear upgrade -f package.xml. Once installed, you can create, list, extract, or add tar the files. Although the readme doesn't provide explicit examples, a typical usage might look like this:
require_once 'Archive/Tar.php';
// Create a new tar object
$tar_object = new Archive_Tar('archive.tar');
// Add a file to the tar
$tar_object->add('test.txt');
// Extract the tar to a specific directory
$tar_object->extract('./my-directory');
Please note that, this is a hypothetical example and might not represent the actual usage.
The documentation for pear/archive_tar is hosted at PEAR PHP. You can find detailed explanations and instructions on how to use the various features offered by this package. The source code is also available on GitHub should you run into any problems or need to understand how the package works at a more granular level. Open issues can be reported via the PEAR bug tracker.
