dotfiles/a/eg/.eg_custom/tar.md

tar

extract .tar file

tar vfx archive.tar

unzip and extract .tar.gz or .tgz file

tar vfxz g_zipped_archive.tar.gz

turn directory into a .tar file

tar vfc tarred_directory.tar directory

turn directory into g-zipped directory

tar vfcz z_zipped_directory.tar.gz directory

Basic Usage

vf means verbosely list files (v) and use a file (f), not stdin. These appear in most commands.

Untar a file:

tar vfx <tar-file-to-extract>

Create a tar file from a directory:

tar vfc <name-of-tar-file> <directory-to-tar>

Remembering the Flags

tar is very finicky. Flags don't need to be prepended by a hyphen, but are instead bundled into the first word on the command line. A leading hyphen will break some implementations or require an order. For example, tar vfx might work while with a hyphen it would require tar -xvf, with the x flag first. You can get maximum portability is you never use the hyphens, so examples here are shown without the hyphen.

You'll almost always want vf. v verbosely lists files as they are manipulated, and f means you're reading from a file, not stdin. You can remember vf if you remember that tar is Very Finicky: vf.

Extract things from a tar file with x for extraction. Compress things to a tar file with c for compress.

And you'll have to just remember that g-zipping is z and b-zipping is j.

Tarring

Compress directory (c) into g-zipped (z) directory:

tar vfcz z_zipped_directory.tar.gz directory

Compress directory (c) into b-zipped (j) directory:

tar vfcj b_zipped_directory.tar.bz2 directory

Compress directory (c) into xz-zipped (J) directory:

tar vfcJ xz_zipped_directory.tar.xz directory

Untarring

Untar (x) and unzip a g-zipped (z) file:

tar vfxz g_zipped_archive.tar.gz

Untar (x) and unzip a b-zipped (j) file:

tar vfxj b_zipped_archive.tar.bz2

Untar (x) and unzip an xz-zipped (J) file:

tar vfxJ xz_zipped_archive.tar.xz

Partial Untarring

Extract only part of the contents (directory/foo.txt) from a .tar file:

tar vfx archived_directory.tar directory/foo.txt

Display Contents

List (t) the contents of a tar file without untarring it:

$ tar vft tarred_directory.tar
drwxr-xr-x  0 tyrion group       0 Feb  4 14:54 directory/
-rw-r--r--  0 tyrion group       0 Feb  4 14:54 directory/bar.txt
-rw-r--r--  0 tyrion group       0 Feb  4 14:54 directory/foo.txt