Slightly concerning variable name :/

If you read the source code (I'm certain you won't), you'll find the word is short hand for "anal retentive," which means someone is excessively neat and precise about things. "Orderly and fussy," sir. Of which you clearly are *not* with your reddit posts. 😂 I'll leave you to discover the history of UNIX tar yourself.

^ But yeah, I would have named it `tar-strict-blocksize`. Ha.

A bit crass perhaps, but "concerning"?

Even `tar-blocksize` would have been clear enough. There's nothing “excessively neat and precise” there… It's an old name and it probably doesn't make sense to change it now, but it's poorly chosen even from a descriptive standpoint.

Possibly. This variable is 'complected' by the fact is serves dual purpose as both an integer and a boolean that signals conditional logic inside the function. Also see the doc string and code for `(tar-pad-to-blocksize)`. Not sure how long you've been around computers, but if you're in the mood to hurt your brain with historic complexity, go read the GNU Tar Info node [9.4 Blocking](https://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_section/Blocking.html) in the manual. This will give you an idea about: 1. How nuanced the behavior and terminology actually is; 2. How difficult it becomes to actually reason about this mess; 3. How someone might become frustrated with this, especially 25+ years ago when we used tape drives more commonly; and 4. How "temporary becomes permanent" in software (meaning: names are hard to choose, they are surprisingly important, and once you have a big enough user base for decades, good luck changing them :)) ( Another good example of #4 is the use of tabs in Makefiles; go look up the Stuart Feldman quote, the original author of `make(1)`. )

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Anal-ysis

Was this properly diagnosed by M-X doctor ?

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This has been removed, as it is not very civil; please attack ideas, not people.

Lol. Definitely could have used some Sbaitso assistance that morning.