libarchive/libarchive-test — Issue #11: 12 - Fix error handling for external programs 
Author: amejia1
Created: 2012-01-20 19:23:02+00:00
State: open

If you invoke --use-compress-program with a nonexistent
filter program, no error is returned from libarchive.
Similarly, there is no error if the filter program
crashes.

$ tar -tvf test.tar --use-compress-program /nonexistent
$ echo $?
0

Original link: http://code.google.com/p/libarchive/issues/detail?id=12