tar (copy files into or restore files from an archive file)

Tar is a utility used to create an archive file, called a tarball. Files can be added to the archive file or removed from the archive file using tar. The action of tar depends on the options used.

 Format:    tar options tarfile filelist Examples:  tar -cf newarch.tar *            tar -xf oldarch 

The first example creates a new archive file called newarch and stores all the files in the current directory in the new archive. It's customary to name the file with a .tar extension. The second example extracts all the files in the archive oldarch. After extraction, the files are in the current directory and the archive is still there also.

Tar has two types of options. One option from the function options is required, determining the action tar performs. The second table lists normal options, totally optional.

Required options	What It Does	Examples
-A	Add another archive to the end of the current archive	tar -Af oldarch newarch.tar
-c	Create a new archive	tar -cf newarch.tar *
-d	Compare archived files with source files and report differences	tar -df tararch.tar
-delete	Remove file from archive file	tar -df tararch.tar file26.txt
-r	Append files to end of archive file	tar -rf tararch.tar rep*
-t	Display names of files in archive	tar -tf tararch.tar
-u	Add files if not already in archive or if they have been modified	tar -uf tararch.tar rep*
-x	Extract files from the archive	tar -xf projarch.tar

Opt	What It Does	Examples
-f file	Use specified archive file.	tar -xf projarch.tar
-j	Compress files with bzip2 before storing in archive file	tar -cjf arc.tar *
-k	Do not overwrite existing files with extracted files	tar -xkf projarc.tar
-m	Do not keep modification time with extracted files. Set modification time to the time the file was extracted.	tar -xmf proj.tar
-p	Keep the permission of the extracted files	tar -xpf proj.tar
-z	Compress files with Gzip before storing in archive file	tar -czf newproj.tar proj1*