tar flexibility for -f

Question

In the following command for example, tar -xzv works but tar -xzvf fails:

wget ${target_url} -O - | tar -xzv --strip-components 1 -C ${web_application_root}/${domain}

I understand I download a data stream to STDOUT with wget and pipe it as STDIN to tar to create an (overriden) directory file with that data.
I know tar -xzvf fails because a data stream which wasn't stored to a file, isn't a file for the shell; so telling tar -f "I work with a file" destroys the operation.

I had a case of not noticing -f and a case I forgot I should remove it when I pipe; these cases happened likely because I almost always do use -f with tar.
Is there a version of tar, or a tweak to make tar, ignoring -f in case data stream wasn't stored to a file?

<sub>Related:
1. What is the rationale for using -f in tar
2. tar without -f option in extraction
3. Piping of stream from wget to tar, and extracting it to a specific location failed</sub>

Answer 1

-f doesn’t change tar’s behaviour with regards to streams or files or anything like that; it specifies the name of the archive to use.

I’m not aware of any variant of tar which can handle the absence of an argument to the -f option, nor am I aware of any reliable way to do so. As cas says, you need to remember that -f always takes an argument. One way to make it less error-prone is to always separate it out; it’s easier to miss an f option in a sequence such as -xzvf than with a separate -f.

It’s better still to always use -f, with - if necessary; that avoids depending on the behaviour of tar with no -f option (which varies depending on compile-time options and the TAPE variable). One way to solve the problem is to always start with -f - after the actions and change - if appropriate.