Normally, tar stops reading when it encounters a block of zeros
between file entries (which usually indicates the end of the archive).
--ignore-zeros (-i) allows tar to
completely read an archive which contains a block of zeros before the
end (i.e., a damaged archive, or one that was created by concatenating
several archives together).
The --ignore-zeros (-i) option is turned off by default because many
versions of tar write garbage after the end-of-archive entry,
since that part of the media is never supposed to be read. GNU tar
does not write after the end of an archive, but seeks to
maintain compatiblity among archiving utilities.
--ignore-zeros
-i
To ignore blocks of zeros (i.e., end-of-archive entries) which may be
encountered while reading an archive. Use in conjunction with
--extract or --list.
Published under the terms of the GNU General Public License
