Although tar xpf seems to do the right thing (excepting uid/gid !) ... > -bash-4.3$ gzcat pyparsing-2.0.6.tar.gz |tar xpf - > -bash-4.3$ find pyparsing-2.0.6/pyparsing.egg-info/ -type f -print |xargs ls -la > -rw-rw-rw- 1 richard richard 943 Nov 14 03:29 pyparsing-2.0.6/pyparsing.egg-info/PKG-INFO > -rw-rw-rw- 1 richard richard 4945 Nov 14 03:29 pyparsing-2.0.6/pyparsing.egg-info/SOURCES.txt > -rw-rw-rw- 1 richard richard 1 Nov 14 03:29 pyparsing-2.0.6/pyparsing.egg-info/dependency_links.txt > -rw-rw-rw- 1 richard richard 10 Nov 14 03:29 pyparsing-2.0.6/pyparsing.egg-info/top_level.txt -- Richard PALO