tldr/pages/common/tar.md

tar

Archiving utility. Often combined with a compression method, such as gzip or bzip. More information: https://www.gnu.org/software/tar.

• Create an archive from files:

tar cf {{target.tar}} {{file1}} {{file2}} {{file3}}

• Create a gzipped archive:

tar czf {{target.tar.gz}} {{file1}} {{file2}} {{file3}}

• Create a gzipped archive from a directory using relative paths:

tar czf {{target.tar.gz}} -C {{path/to/directory}} .

• Extract a (compressed) archive into the current directory:

tar xf {{source.tar[.gz|.bz2|.xz]}}

• Extract an archive into a target directory:

tar xf {{source.tar}} -C {{directory}}

• Create a compressed archive, using archive suffix to determine the compression program:

tar caf {{target.tar.xz}} {{file1}} {{file2}} {{file3}}

• List the contents of a tar file:

tar tvf {{source.tar}}

• Extract files matching a pattern:

tar xf {{source.tar}} --wildcards {{"*.html"}}

• Extract a specific file without preserving the folder structure:

tar xf {{source.tar}} {{source.tar/path/to/extract}} --strip-components={{depth_to_strip}}