The man page for git-archive has similar language regarding the --add-file and --add-virtual-file options: The path of the file in the archive is built by concatenating the value of the last --prefix option (if any) before... However this doesn't seem to be true for --add-virtual-file. In any git repository: $ touch real_added_file $ git archive --format=tar --prefix=prefix/ --add-file=real_added_file \ --add-virtual-file=virtual_added_file: HEAD | \ tar tvf - | grep added_file -rw-rw-r-- root/root 0 2017-02-22 17:18 prefix/real_added_file -rw-rw-r-- root/root 0 2017-02-22 17:18 virtual_added_file I expected to see 'prefix/virtual_added_file'. Ron