#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use Archive::Tar;

# begin by creating a test directory to tar up:
BEGIN {
    mkdir "test_dir",0755;
    for my $i ( 1 .. 3 ) {
    open( TEST, ">test_dir/test$i.txt" );
    print TEST "This is test data file number $i\n";
    close TEST;
    symlink "test$i.txt", "test_dir/test$i.lnk" unless ( $i % 2 );
    }
}

my $tar = Archive::Tar->new();

opendir( DIR, "test_dir" ) or die $!;
my @files = grep /\w/, readdir DIR;

foreach my $f ( @files )
{
    next unless ( $f =~ /test2/ ); # just for the sake of being select
+ive

# UPDATE:  this doesn't actually work as hoped for:
#    if ( -l "test_dir/$f" )
#    {                # it's a symlink!!
#        my $targ_path = readlink "test_dir/$f";
#        my %opt_hash = ( linkname => $targ_path );
#        $tar->add_data( "test_dir/$f", '', \%opt_hash ) or
#            die "failed to add $f: $!\n";
#    }
#    else
#    {                # it's just a plain file
#
# BUT: this actually does what the OP wants, and seems to
# disagree with heezy's findings:

     $tar->add_files( "test_dir/$f" ) or die "failed to add $f: $!\n";

#    }
}

$tar->write( "test_dir.tar", 0 ) or die "failed to write tar file: $!\
+n";

# let's end with a report of how we did
END {  
    my $report = `tar tvf test_dir.tar`;
    print $report;
}
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comment on updated code: My initial post had a dumb mistake, doing (-l $f) instead of (-l "test_dir/$f") in the portion that was commented out by the update -- that is, after it produced the desired result, I looked closer and realized that it shouldn't have worked. It wasn't till I took out all the conditional stuff and just used the "add_files()" method on each iteration, that I got the desired result again. Seems like that stuff in the Archive::Tar man page about the "linkname" option for "add_data()" is just bunk.