tar
***

.. highlight:: bash

Create
======

::

  tar -cvzf archive.tar.gz .

I think ``.tar.gz`` and ``.tgz`` both describe a Gzip_ file.  To compress a
folder::

  tar cvzf svn-3281.tgz svn-3281/

To archive files in a symbolic link folder, use the ``h`` flag e.g::

  tar -hcvzf ~/repo/backup/temp.tar.gz /home/web/repo/temp/

.. warning:: From `tar: cannot open: no such file or directory`_  Make sure
             ``h`` is the first flag (or ``f`` is the final flag)!

Extract
=======

tar
---

To extract the archive ``filename.tar`` into the current directory::

  tar xf filename.tar

bz2
---

To extract the archive ``filename.sql.bz2`` into the current directory::

  bzip2 -d filename.sql.bz2

To extract the archive ``filename.tar.bz2`` into the current directory::

  tar xjf filename.tar.bz2

gz
--

A ``gz`` file is a not actually a ``tar`` format.  Use ``gunzip``::

  gunzip dump.1.gz

tar.gz
------

To extract the archive ``filename.tar.gz`` into the current directory::

  tar xzf filename.tar.gz

To strip the initial folder::

  tar --strip-components=1 -xzf filename.tar.gz

List
====

::

  tar -tvf sample.tar
  tar -ztvf sample.tar.gz
  tar -jtvf sample.tar.bz2


.. _Gzip: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gzip
.. _`tar: cannot open: no such file or directory`: http://superuser.com/questions/691131/tar-cannot-open-no-such-file-or-directory