sub extractTarFile
{
        my ($strftime, $submissionID, $cur_submit_dir, $tarLocation,
            $old_cwd, $tar, $RC_extract);

        my ($user_Name, $tmpFilePosition, $user_File_Filename) = @_;

        # just to save some typing
        $strftime = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S", localtime);

        # note that this ID is not unique
        $submissionID = "$strftime-$user_Name";

        $cur_submit_dir = "$submittedFiles/$submissionID";
        $tarLocation = "$cur_submit_dir/$user_File_Filename";

        # do you really need to create a world writable directory?
        mkdir($cur_submit_dir, 0755) or die "Cannot make directory: $!";

        copy("$tmpFilePosition", "$tarLocation") or die "copy failed: $!";

        # store our current working directory
        $old_cwd = Cwd::cwd;
        # change to submitted files current dir
        Cwd::chdir($cur_submit_dir);

        $tar = Archive::Tar->new();
        $RC_extract = $tar->extract_archive($tarLocation);

        # restore previous working dir
        Cwd::chdir $old_cwd;

        return $RC_extract, $tar->error();
}