You know dam well...
You are really a Joker man...
This issue has nothing to do with wether or not TAR can deal with embedded spaces...
watch this...
[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ cat /dev/null > foo bar\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ cat /dev/null > foo\\ at\\ bar\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ cat /dev/null > "foo not bar"\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ ls -l\ntotal 0\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo at bar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$
You see the equivalence... now for tar
[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ tar cvf demo.tar foo*\nfoo\nfoo at bar\nfoo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ ls -l\ntotal 12\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 10240 Dec 27 13:30 demo.tar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo at bar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ tar tvf demo.tar\n-rw-r--r-- gfolkert/users 0 2002-12-27 13:29:40 foo\n-rw-r--r-- gfolkert/users 0 2002-12-27 13:29:40 foo at bar\n-rw-r--r-- gfolkert/users 0 2002-12-27 13:29:40 foo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ mkdir test\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ cd test/\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ tar -xvf ../demo.tar foo\\ at\\ bar\nfoo at bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ ls -l\ntotal 0\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo at bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ tar -xvf ../demo.tar "foo not bar"\nfoo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ ls -l\ntotal 0\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo at bar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$tar -xvf ../demo.tar foo bar\nfoo\ntar: bar: Not found in archive\ntar: Error exit delayed from previous errors\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ ls -l\ntotal 0\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo at bar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$See that... THAT is what you are talking about not being supported. Bah...