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by masklinn 3842 days ago
That doesn't seem correct, on osx 10.11 `tar xf` can extract `.tar.xz` yet doesn't fork an xz. AFAIK 10.11 doesn't even come with xz.
1 comments
jessaustin 3842 days ago
tar can link the xz lib without forking.
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masklinn 3842 days ago
So tar does "implement decompression" (and compression, by delegating the work to libarchive) and it can work even "if you don't have xz installed".
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jessaustin 3842 days ago
It would require liblzma, but you are correct that the library is a separate thing from the executable xz.
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masklinn 3842 days ago
> It would require liblzma

Yep, in the same way it requires libz and libbz2.

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