python TarFile.extractall command deletes the files in the target directory

Question

this is a simple piece of code in our production env. Python version 2.7

tar = tarfile.open(fileobj=pipe, mode='r|gz')
tar.extractall(d)

The finally blocks closes the tar file also.

   finally:
        if tar:
            tar.close()

However, on windows it is observed that some files in the target directory are deleted after the extractall(). Is this possible? has anyone seen such issue before?

Windows is windows 2016

Answer 1

In my experience tarfile.extractall() overwrites files and directories. If you edit some extracted files and than run again extractall(), you will obtain the "original" files.