tar Command in Linux / Unix

tar is an acronym for Tape Archive. tar command is used to Manipulates archives in Linux/Unix. System administrators uses tar command frequently to rip a bunch of files or directories into highly compressed archive which are called tarball or tar, bzip and gzip in Linux/Unix system.

tar Syntex

tar [OPTION...] [FILE]...

Or
tar required Flags

tar {-r|-t|-c|-x|-u} 

tar optional Flags

tar {one of the required Flags} [ -d ][-B] [ -F ] [ -E ] [ -i ] [-h ] [ -l ] [ -m ] [ -o ] [ -p ] [ -w] [ -s ] [ -U ] [ -v ]
[-Number] [-b Blocks] [-f Archive]

Examples

Create tar Archive File by Compressing an Directory or a Single File

The terminal command below will create a .tar file called sample_dir.tar with a directory /home/codebind/sample_dir or sample_dir in present working directory.

codebind@codebind:~$  tar -cvf sample_dir.tar sample_dir
sample_dir/
sample_dir/main.cpp
sample_dir/sample.png
sample_dir/output
codebind@codebind:~$ ls
sample_dir sample_dir.tar

Here’s what those flags (-cvf) actually mean
-c, --create– create a new archive
-x, --extract, --get– extract files from an archive
-f, --file ARCHIVE– use archive file or device ARCHIVE

Create tar.gz or tgz Archive File by Compressing an Directory or a Single File

The terminal command below will create a .tar.gz file called sample_dir.tar.gz with a directory /home/codebind/sample_dir or sample_dir in present working directory.

Notice that we have added extra flag -z to the command.Here’s what the flag -z actually mean
-z, --gzip, --gunzip --ungzip– Compress the archive with gzip

codebind@codebind:~$ tar -cvzf sample_dir.tar.gz sample_dirsample_dir/
sample_dir/main.cpp
sample_dir/sample.png
sample_dir/output
codebind@codebind:~$ ls
sample_dir sample_dir.tar.gz

The command bellow will create a .tgz file. One this to notice is tar.gz and tgz both are similar.

codebind@codebind:~$ tar -cvzf sample_dir.tgz sample_dirsample_dir/
sample_dir/main.cpp
sample_dir/sample.png
sample_dir/output
codebind@codebind:~$ ls
sample_dir sample_dir.tgz

Compressing Multiple Directories or Files at Once

Let’s say, For example we want to compress the sample_dir directory, the java_test directory, and the abc.py file to a tar file called sample_dir.tar.gz.
Run the following command to achieve the goal above.

codebind@codebind:~$ tar -cvzf sample_dir.tar.gz sample_dir java_test abc.py
sample_dir/
sample_dir/main.cpp
sample_dir/sample.png
sample_dir/output
java_test/
java_test/HelloCV.java
abc.py
codebind@codebind:~$ ls
sample_dir java_test abc.py sample_dir.tar.gz

Create .bzip2 Archive File by Compressing an Directory or a Single File

codebind@codebind:~$ tar -cjvf sample_dir.tar.bz2 sample_dir
sample_dir/
sample_dir/main.cpp
sample_dir/sample.png
sample_dir/output
codebind@codebind:~$ 

Notice that we have added extra flag -f to the command.Here’s what the flag -f actually mean

-f, --file ARCHIVE– use archive file or device ARCHIVE

Extract .tar Archive File

We can extract or untar the compressed file using the tar command. The command below will extract the contents of sample_dir.tar to the present directory.

codebind@codebind:~$ tar -xvf sample_dir.tar
sample_dir/
sample_dir/main.cpp
sample_dir/sample.png
sample_dir/output
codebind@codebind:~$ 

 

 

 

 

The following command will extract or Untar files in specified Directory i.e. /home/codebind/dir_name in this case.

codebind@codebind:~$ tar -xvf sample_dir.tar -C /home/codebind/dir_name
sample_dir/
sample_dir/main.cpp
sample_dir/sample.png
sample_dir/output
codebind@codebind:~$ 

we have added extra flag -C to the command.Here’s what the flag -C actually mean

-C, --directory DIR – change to directory DIR