shutil.make_archive (xxx, tar, root_dir) is adding './' entry to archive which is wrong

[HFM]

BPO	35964
Nosy	@Yhg1s, @tarekziade, @SpecLad, @serhiy-storchaka, @websurfer5
PRs	gh-80145: Exclude '.' directory when adding directories to a tar archive #13738
Files	tarfile_test.tar: reproduce the problem

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2019-02-11.12:40:46.518>
labels = ['3.7', 'library']
title = "shutil.make_archive (xxx, tar, root_dir) is adding './' entry to archive which is wrong"
updated_at = <Date 2019-08-27.20:46:19.371>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/HFM'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2019-08-27.20:46:19.371>
actor = 'SpecLad'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2019-02-11.12:40:46.518>
creator = 'HFM'
dependencies = []
files = ['48132']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 35964
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 2.0
messages = ['335211', '344254']
nosy_count = 10.0
nosy_names = ['twouters', 'alanmcintyre', 'bialix', 'tarek', 'python-dev', 'SpecLad', 'serhiy.storchaka', 'HFM', 'Oskar Persson', 'Jeffrey.Kintscher']
pr_nums = ['13738']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = 'patch review'
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue35964'
versions = ['Python 2.7', 'Python 3.6', 'Python 3.7']

Linked PRs

• gh-80145: shutil.make_archive(): exclude '.' when base_dir is None #118152

[HFM]

Running shutil.make_archive('a', 'tar', 'subdir') is created wrong and not really needed entry "./" which is visible in tarfile.Tarfile.list():

['./', 'foo/', 'hello.txt', 'foo/bar.txt']

I have tested and found this issue in the following versions of python:
2.7.15rc1 FOUND
3.6.7 FOUND
3.7.1 FOUND

I've attached a simple script which illustrates problem. Tested on Ubuntu Linux with mentioned python versions.

Similar issue has been fixed for 'zip' (https://bugs.python.org/issue28488) but exists for 'tar' archives.

[websurfer5]

I submitted a pull request that excludes '.' directory entries when adding directories to a tar archive.

[serhiy-storchaka]

On one hand, tar -cf /tmp/t.tar . adds the ./ entry, and all other entries have the ./ prefix.

On other hand, zip -r /tmp/t.zip . does not add the ./ entry, and other entries does not have the ./ prefix.

shutil.make_archive() was made consistent with tar and zip utilities, but it makes it inconsistent with itself for different types of archives. In the command line, when we want to add add entries in the current directory, but not the current directory, we use globs: tar -cf /tmp/t.tar * (it should be more complex if we want to include dot-files). We can do this with the tarfile module by calling os.listdir() and calling the add() method multiple times, but it is not supported in the high-level shutil.make_archive().

Perhaps make shutil.make_archive() excluding ./ if base_dir is None? Explicit os.curdir should still add the ./ entry and the ./ prefix.