Archive::Tar::Wrapper is an API wrapper around the 'tar' command line utility. It never stores anything in memory, but works on temporary directory structures on disk instead. It provides a mapping between the logical paths in the tarball and the 'real' files in the temporary directory on disk. It differs from Archive::Tar in two ways: - Archive::Tar::Wrapper doesn't hold anything in memory. Everything is stored on disk. - Archive::Tar::Wrapper is 100% compliant with the platform's tar utility, because it uses it internally.