Tar Command Basics

Notes to self from an excellent sources: http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/11/50-linux-commands/

and http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/04/unix-tar-command-examples/

1. Creating an archive using tar command

Creating an uncompressed tar archive using option cvf

This is the basic command to create a tar archive.

$ tar cvf archive_name.tar dirname/

In the above command:

• c – create a new archive
• v – verbosely list files which are processed.
• f – following is the archive file name

Creating a tar gzipped archive using option cvzf

The above tar cvf option, does not provide any compression. To use a gzip compression on the tar archive, use the z option as shown below.

$ tar cvzf archive_name.tar.gz dirname/

• z – filter the archive through gzip

Note: .tgz is same as .tar.gz

Creating a bzipped tar archive using option cvjf

Create a bzip2 tar archive as shown below:

$ tar cvfj archive_name.tar.bz2 dirname/

• j – filter the archive through bzip2

gzip vs bzip2: bzip2 takes more time to compress and decompress than gzip. bzip2 archival size is less than gzip.
Note: .tbz and .tb2 is same as .tar.bz2

2. Extracting (untar) an archive using tar command

Extract a *.tar file using option xvf

Extract a tar file using option x as shown below:

$ tar xvf archive_name.tar

 x – extract files from archive

Extract a gzipped tar archive ( *.tar.gz ) using option xvzf

Use the option z for uncompressing a gzip tar archive.

$ tar xvfz archive_name.tar.gz 

Extracting a bzipped tar archive ( *.tar.bz2 ) using option xvjf

Use the option j for uncompressing a bzip2 tar archive.

$ tar xvfj archive_name.tar.bz2

Note: In all the above commands v is optional, which lists the file being processed

3. Listing an archive using tar command

View the tar archive file content without extracting using option tvf

You can view the *.tar file content before extracting as shown below.

$ tar tvf archive_name.tar 

View the *.tar.gz file content without extracting using option tvzf

You can view the *.tar.gz file content before extracting as shown below.

$ tar tvfz archive_name.tar.gz

View the *.tar.bz2 file content without extracting using option tvjf

You can view the *.tar.bz2 file content before extracting as shown below.

$ tar tvfj archive_name.tar.bz2