Tar Command Examples in Linux
Tar Command in Linux and its examples:
The command tar stands for tape archive which is used to rip a collection of files and directories into highly compressed archive file called tarball.
1. Create a tar file:
# tar -cvf example.tar /root/test/
The above command will create a tar file named “example.tar” for the directory /root/test/ in the current working directory.
Here,
c – to creates a new tar file.
v – for verbos
f – file name type of the archive file
2. Create a tar.gz file:
# tar cvzf example.tar.gz /root/documents
The above command will create an example.tar.gz file for the /root/documents directory.
Where,
z – is used for gzip.
3. Untar a tar file:
# tar -xvf example.tar -C /root/documents/
# tar -xvzf example.tar.gz -C /root/documents/
The above commands will untar the example.tar and example.tar.gz files in /root/documents/ directory.
Where,
x – is used to extract.
C – is used to specify the path.
4. List content of a tar file:
# tar -tvf example.tar
# tar -tvf example.tar.gz
The above command will list the content of the example.tar and example.tar.gz files.
Where,
t – is used to list the content.
5. Extract a single file from a tar file:
# tar -xvf example.tar test1.txt
OR
# tar --extract --file=example.tar test1.txt
# tar -xvzf example.tar.gz test2.txt
# tar -xvjf example.tar.bz2 test3.txt
The above command will extract the single files (test1.txt, text2.txt and test3.txt) from those tar files.
Where,
j – is used for the highly compressed tar files (.bz2)
6. Extract multiple files from a tar file:
# tar -xvzf example.tar.gz "test1.txt" "test2.txt"
The above command will extract the test1.txt and test2.txt files from the example.tar.gz tar file.
7. Append files or directories to a tar file:
# tar -rvf example.tar test5.txt
The above command will append the file test5.txt to the existing example.tar file.
Where,
r – is used to append.
Note: We cannot append any file or directory to tar.gz and tar.bz2 files.
8. How to verify a tar file?
# tar tvfW example.tar
The above command will verify the example.tar file.
Where,
W – is used to verify.
Note: We cannot verify tar.gz and tar.bz2 files.
That’s it in this article, hope you enjoyed it. Please share it across if you think it’s good.