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tarfile.py in python 2.4.3 version has a bug that makes 
it to stop iteration while reading members. 
If a file's name is longer than 100 bytes, after 
reading ././@LongLink header of the file in the tar 
archive, tarfile tries to read the actual header. But if the 
100 byte of the file's name ends with "/" and it is a 
regular file (type is a file type). Tarfile changes it's type 
to a directory by thinking that it is some old tar archive 
format's directory member (because it seems to end 
with a "/").
I created a tar archive to test this case. You can find it 
in the attachments.
My test code does this:
#!/usr/bin/python
import tarfile
import sys
tar = tarfile.open(sys.argv[1], "r")
tar.list()
If I run it with the prepared tar file, i get this output:
faik@pardus tmp $ ./tarlist.py longfiles.tar
-rwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006年06月21日 13:03:59 
this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/
-rwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006年06月21日 13:06:17 
this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/
-rwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006年06月21日 13:08:21 
this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/
-rw-r--r-- faik/users 19 2006年06月21日 13:08:41 
this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/NEWS
But if I run tar(1) with tvf options, i get this output:
faik@pardus tmp $ tar tvf longfiles.tar
drwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006年06月21日 13:03:59 
this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/
drwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006年06月21日 13:06:17 
this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/
drwxr-xr-x faik/users 0 2006年06月21日 13:08:21 
this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/
-rw-r--r-- faik/users 19 2006年06月21日 13:08:41 
this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/NEWS
-rw-r--r-- faik/users 18 2006年06月21日 13:10:10 
this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/COPYING
-rw-r--r-- faik/users 26 2006年06月21日 13:09:05 
this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/README
tarfile.py ends iteration with this member 
file: "this.is.a.very.long.directory.name/this.is.another.very.long.directory.name/and.this.is.another.one/NEWS".
Because the full directory path name length that 
contains the NEWS file is exactly 100 bytes long.
There is also an attachment for the fix of the bug. 

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This is fixed in SVN, you can try the 2.5 beta to verify it.