hstar

hstar is a command-line tool like tar, with several more features.

• Use
• Features
  • Compression
• Performance

Use

To generate bash shell completions:

hstar --bash-completion-script hstar

Features

Unlike other tar implementations, hstar has the sanitize subcommand which converts a file into a pax-compatible archive and the lint subcommand which points out suspicious archives.

hstar can change the compression based on command-line flags, like bsdtar and arc (this feature is missing from GNU tar, busybox tar, and seemingly Schily tar).

Compression

hstar has near-parity with other command-line tar implementations with respect to compression support.

Program	lzop	lzip	lzma	gzip	bzip2	zstd	lz4	brotli	snappy	lrzip	grzip
bsdtar	x	x	x	x	x	x	x			x	x
hstar	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	½
arc			x	x	x	x	½		x
Schily tar	x	x	x	x	x	x
busybox tar			x	x	x
python3 tar module			x	x	x
GNU tar	x	x	x	x	x	x

Performance

Benchmarks run on Linux. Performance should be near GNU tar, bsdtar, or Schily tar.

Program	Compression	Command	Time
bsdtar	zstd	bsdtar -xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.zst	61.28 ms
hstar	zstd	hstar unpack sparc64-linux-dist.tar.zst	69.63 ms
GNU tar	zstd	tar xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.zst	303.8 ms
Schily tar	zstd	star xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.zst	291.0 ms
bsdtar	lzip	bsdtar -xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.lz	345.3 ms
hstar	lzip	hstar unpack sparc64-linux-dist.tar.lz	433.2 ms
GNU tar	lzip	tar xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.lz	456.8 ms
Schily tar	lzip	star xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.lz	440.0 ms
busybox tar	lzip	lzip -cd sparc64-linux-dist.tar.lz | busybox tar xf -	481.0 ms
busybox tar	zstd	zstd -cd sparc64-linux-dist.tar.zst | busybox tar xf -	319.0 ms
python3 tar	gzip	python3 -m tarfile -e sparc64-linux-dist.tar.gz	245.3 ms
bsdtar	gzip	bsdtar -xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.gz	122.8 ms
hstar	gzip	hstar unpack sparc64-linux-dist.tar.gz	172.4 ms
GNU tar	gzip	tar xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.gz	233.9 ms
Schily tar	gzip	star xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.gz	234.8 ms
arc	gzip	arc -overwrite unarchive sparc64-linux-dist.tar.gz	362.0 ms
python3 tar	lzma	python3 -m tarfile -e sparc64-linux-dist.tar.xz	414.9 ms
bsdtar	lzma	bsdtar -xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.xz	349.4 ms
hstar	lzma	hstar unpack sparc64-linux-dist.tar.xz	360.6 ms
GNU tar	lzma	tar xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.xz	364.3 ms
Schily tar	lzma	star xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.xz	353.6 ms
arc	lzma	arc -overwrite unarchive sparc64-linux-dist.tar.xz	1.191 s
python3 tar	bzip2	python3 -m tarfile -e sparc64-linux-dist.tar.bz2	1.242 s
bsdtar	bzip2	bsdtar -xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.bz2	1.149 s
hstar	bzip2	hstar unpack sparc64-linux-dist.tar.bz2	1.136 s
GNU tar	bzip2	tar xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.bz2	1.092 s
Schily tar	bzip2	star xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.bz2	1.103 s
arc	bzip2	arc -overwrite unarchive sparc64-linux-dist.tar.bz2	2.544 s
busybox tar	gzip	busybox tar xzf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.gz	307.5 ms
busybox tar	bzip2	busybox tar xjf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.bz2	1.018 s
busybox tar	lzma	busybox tar xJf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.xz	385.6 ms
bsdtar	lz4	bsdtar -xf sparc64-linux-dist.tar.lz4	40.69 ms
hstar	lz4	hstar unpack sparc64-linux-dist.tar.lz4	49.87 ms
busybox tar	lz4	lz4 -cd sparc64-linux-dist.tar.lz4 | busybox tar xf -	56.00 ms
GNU tar	lz4	lz4 -cd sparc64-linux-dist.tar.lz4 | tar xf -	39.19 ms
Schily tar	lz4	lz4 -cd sparc64-linux-dist.tar.lz4 | star xf -	30.88 ms