http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=929509


in reply to using Archive::Tar

The third argument to create_archive is defined as @filelist, with the explanation:

The remaining arguments list the files to be included in the tar file. These files must all exist. Any files which don't exist or can't be read are silently ignored.

Note that no mention is made of directories, just files. create_archive does not recurse through directories; you must specify each file to be archived.