tar Command in Linuxwith Examples

Synopsis:

tar [OPTION…] [FILE]…

Examples:

1. Creating an uncompressed archive using tar command

$ tar cvf archive_name.tar dirname/

Create archive_name.tar from all files in directory dirname
OR

$ tar cvf archive_name.tar abc def

Create archive_name.tar from files abc, def in directory dirname
Options mean
c – create a new archive
v – verbosely list files which are processed.(optional)
f – following is the archive file name
 
Say if there is a directory in which we have abc and def files and we make a tar file out of them, so the following procedure will be followed

$ ls
abc  def
$ tar cvf compressed.tar abc def
abc
def
$ ls
abc  compressed.tar  def

2. Creating a compressed archive using tar command

(i) gzipped tar – To use a gzip compression on the tar archive, use the z option as shown below

$ tar cvzf archive_name.tar.gz dirname/

Note: .tgz is same as .tar.gz
Note: For this method to work properly, don’t give – in front of the options.

(ii)bzipped tar-To use a bzip2 compression on the tar archive, use the z option as shown below

$ tar cvfj archive_name.tar.bz2 dirname/

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

3. Extracting a tar archive

Extract a tar file using option x as shown below:

$ tar xvf archive_name.tar

It extracts the files in the present directory where archive is located.

4. Extracting a compressed tar archive

(i) gzipped tar-Use the option z for uncompressing a gzip tar archive.

$ tar xvfz archive_name.tar.gz

(ii)bzipped tar-Use the option j for uncompressing a gzip tar archive.

$ tar xvfj archive_name.tar.bz2

5. Listing an uncompressed archive using tar command

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

$ tar tvf archive_name.tar

6. Listing a compressed archive using tar command

(i) gzipped tar-Use the option z for uncompressing a gzip tar archive.

$ tar tvfz archive_name.tar.gz

(ii)bzipped tar-Use the option j for uncompressing a gzip tar archive.

$ tar tvfj archive_name.tar.bz2

Note: When the number of files in an archive is more, you may pipe the output of tar to less.

7. Extract a single file from tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2 file

To extract a specific file from a tar archive, specify the file name at the end of the tar xvf

$ tar xvf archive_file.tar /path/file

Use the relevant option z or j according to the compression method gzip or bzip2 respectively

$ tar xvfz archive_file.tar.gz /path/file
OR
$ tar xvfj archive_file.tar.bz2 /path/file

Note: For multiple files with same extension use wildcard option

$ tar xvf archive_file.tar --wildcards '*.c'

8. Extract directory from tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2 file

Specify the directory name at the end of the tar xvf command as shown below.

$ tar xvf archive_file.tar /path/dir/

To extract multiple directories from a tar archive,specify all the individual directories at the end.

$ tar xvf archive_file.tar /path/dir1/ /path/dir2/

Use the relevant option z or j according to the compression method gzip or bzip2 respectively .

9. Adding a file or directory to an existing archive

This can be done with the help of -r option.

$ tar rvf archive.tar abc

This appends the file abc to archive.tar
Adding a directory to the tar is also similar,

$ tar rvf archive.tar dir/

Note: You cannot add file or directory to a compressed archive. If you try to do so, you will get “tar: Cannot update compressed archives” error

10. Estimate the tar archive size

The following command, estimates the tar file size ( in KB ) before you create the tar file.

$ tar -cf - /directory/to/archive/ | wc -c

The result of tar command is piplined to wc command(wordcount with -c option to count bytes).
Use the relevant option z or j according to the compression method gzip or bzip2 respectively .