title: How does Maven integrate with TAR?
body: <p>I want to know how Maven integrates with TAR : Does it simply call out to your OS' native version of TAR, or does it have an internally packaged version in its "/lib" Jars somewhere, or does it use JTar internally or something else?</p>
  
  <p>Please, please <em>don't</em> post guessing or speculation replies - I have done <em>lots</em> of guessing and speculation already, and I have experimented to rule-out some possibilities. For instance, I renamed the OS-X "tar" and "bsdtar" executables, but Maven could still do the assembly-phase so I surmised Maven probably wasn't calling-out to the OS tar utility in "/usr/bin".</p>
  
  <p>Ergo, as a last-ditch I'm hoping someone who knows can give me a solid, definitive answer; but no answer is better than a dozen guesses.</p>
  
  <p>Why I'm asking is not important and will just make people post tangential 'answers' that don't answer the question. I just can't find a definitive answer in the Maven documentation or on any of the forums.</p>
  
  <p>Also, I do <em>not</em> need to know how to make tar or gzip files using Maven. I <em>know</em> how to tell Maven to do that. What I don't know is how Maven is <em>internally implemented</em> to generate Tar file format(s), and I need to find out.</p>