Every time I stop working on a particular project, I tar up the whole directory where I was working, (ie writing C++ code)

tar -cvf Friday_Afternoon.tar ./

,storing compiled program , source and everything in that one tarball.

That way I conveniently send it home to work on for the weekend.
In fact, it doesnt matter wether this .tar gets emailed or not,
when I untar it
tar -xvf Friday_Afternoon.tar
in a new directory,
the source is almost intact, except for one file which gets totally mangled,
mainly: I can read the content of some of the other files inside it (those that are in the directory,some are included in said file that s got corrupted) at other places,
stuff like this:
./filename.hpp~0100600415261000056020000000513210154076776012745 0
ustar myUserName
and at other places, stuff that looks like compiled code

�p��<������^L^L�
.��1F��Zp�j��,o<�N�����L�.�\�/�l������|�
��������,���� `���:̍^LI܍V �4Z�
u��E�^�� ¤ `��kP�~"
_ ┌² ¶ <Q É LÕ Û \¸ " ó ┌

(aspect changed when pasted into this post)
followed by stuff like this, which i never typed in said source file:

ompleted.1__do_global_dtors_aux__EH_FRAME_BEGIN__fini_dummyobject.\
2frame_dummyinit_dummyforce_to_data__CTOR_LIST____do_global_ctors_a\
ux__CTOR_END____DTOR_END____FRAME_END__testGLUT.cppKey__FU\
ciiReshape__Fii__PRETTY_FUNCTION__.451__EXCEPTION_TABLE____FR\
AME_BEGIN__cerrglutKeyboardFunc_DYNAMICclose__11fstreambaseendl__\
FR7ostreamglFlush_fp_hwHeightglutMainLoop_._8ofstreamglutCreateWindow_\
_assert_fail@


So, just about anything can be found in the file, except the original source, which is nowhere to be seen
Am I tarring untarring it wrong?
is it because there s some compiled program along with the sources in the archive?
can it be because some of the source files contain the words #include another file in the dir (seems a common case !).

Odd, never had a problem with it here and I tar source code that includes several binaries all the time. The only thing I do differently is that I back out of the directory containing the source first, then tar that directory.

cd ..
tar cvf mysource.tar mysource

Doing it the way you are, it may be trying to tar the tar file it's creating, since that file would become part of the directory you're tarring. Maybe that is messing it up.

OK
you must have been very right -
when i do as you suggest, it works normally.

The possibility that it d start tarring its own output along with hadnt crossed my mind - pbly I d expect an error to be thrown in that case, as the command could never stop then.. and tar never told me even a warning.

But it works when i do it as you say!

Thanks a lot!