Issue #9065: no longer use "root" as the default for the
uname and gname field.
If tarfile creates a new archive and adds a file with a
uid/gid that doesn't have a corresponding name on the
system (e.g. because the user/group account was deleted) it
uses the empty string in the uname/gname field now instead
of "root". Using "root" as the default was a bad idea
because on extraction the uname/gname fields are supposed
to override the uid/gid fields. So, all archive members
with nameless uids/gids belonged to the root user after
extraction.
diff --git a/Lib/tarfile.py b/Lib/tarfile.py
index 8c330c6..cc7514d 100644
--- a/Lib/tarfile.py
+++ b/Lib/tarfile.py
@@ -945,8 +945,8 @@
self.chksum = 0 # header checksum
self.type = REGTYPE # member type
self.linkname = "" # link name
- self.uname = "root" # user name
- self.gname = "root" # group name
+ self.uname = "" # user name
+ self.gname = "" # group name
self.devmajor = 0 # device major number
self.devminor = 0 # device minor number
@@ -1124,8 +1124,8 @@
info.get("type", REGTYPE),
stn(info.get("linkname", ""), 100, encoding, errors),
info.get("magic", POSIX_MAGIC),
- stn(info.get("uname", "root"), 32, encoding, errors),
- stn(info.get("gname", "root"), 32, encoding, errors),
+ stn(info.get("uname", ""), 32, encoding, errors),
+ stn(info.get("gname", ""), 32, encoding, errors),
itn(info.get("devmajor", 0), 8, format),
itn(info.get("devminor", 0), 8, format),
stn(info.get("prefix", ""), 155, encoding, errors)
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index ed544df..1bf3acd 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -88,6 +88,9 @@
Library
-------
+- Issue #9065: tarfile no longer uses "root" as the default for the uname and
+ gname field.
+
- Issue #8980: Fixed a failure in distutils.command check that was shadowed
by an environment that does not have docutils. Patch by Arfrever.