{"id":18650,"date":"2020-11-22T19:58:58","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T03:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/careerkarma.com\/blog\/?p=18650"},"modified":"2023-12-01T04:04:50","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T12:04:50","slug":"tar-command","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/careerkarma.com\/blog\/tar-command\/","title":{"rendered":"tar Command: A Beginner’s Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The tar command is used to create compressed archives which represent a file or collection of files. A tar file, commonly known as a “tarball,” a gzip, or a bzip file, will have an extension ending with .tar or .tar.gz.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve just downloaded a file from the internet and it has the \u201c.tar\u201d extension. You try to unzip it using traditional unzipping programs, but it doesn\u2019t want to open. What\u2019s going on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may be having trouble because \u201c.tar\u201d files aren\u2019t zipped; they are their own file type. Opening a .tar file can be frustrating, especially because the command you can use to open it has a lot of options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this guide, we\u2019re going to help you overcome that frustration. We\u2019ll discuss how you can create a compressed file and how you can open one using the tar command in Linux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the Linux tar Command?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The tar command lets you create compressed archives which contain a particular file or set of files. The resultant archive files are commonly known as tarballs, gzip, bzip, or tar files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tar file is a special format that groups files into one. It\u2019s similar to a .zip file in that it can hold multiple files, but it is its own file type. Tar files have the suffix .tar or .tar.gz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using the tar command in Linux, you can open, view, and create a tar file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

tar Command: Open a File<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you have a tar archive file that you want to open, all you need to do is use this command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

tar -xzvf linux_files.tar.gz<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
This Linux command line operation<\/a> returns:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
x linux\/\nx linux\/names.txt\nx linux\/app.txt\nx linux\/README.md\nx linux\/config\/app.sh<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The -xzvf flags tell the tar command that you want to extract files from an archive. That\u2019s a handy way to remember this list of four characters: it starts with x because it allows you to extract files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By default, this command will extract the contents of archive_name.tar.gz into your working directory. You can override this behavior using the \u201c-C\u201d flag at the end of the command. This flag allows you to specify a directory into which the contents of the tar file should be moved:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
tar -xzvf linux_files.tar.gz -C \/home\/careerkarma\/Documents<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
This command will extract our archive into the \/home\/careerkarma\/Documents folder on our Linux computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
tar Command: View a File<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
When you are sent a tar file, your first instinct may be to open it up. How else are you going to see what\u2019s in the file? But, you can preview the file without extracting its contents to your computer. The following command will let you list the contents of a tar file without extracting its full contents to your computer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
tar -tvf linux_files.tar.gz<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Our command returns:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
drwxr--r--  0 James  staff   \t0 Jun 12 11:03 linux\/\n-rw-r--r--  0 James  staff  \t89 Jun 12 09:04 linux\/names.txt\n-rw-r--r--  0 James  staff   \t2 Jun 12 09:57 linux\/app.txt\n-rwxr--r--  0 James  staff   \t0 Jun 12 08:06 linux\/README.md\n-rw-r--r--  0 James  staff   \t2 Jun 12 10:26 linux\/config\/app.sh<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
This command returns an output that is similar to what you would see if you run the <\/a><\/a>Linux <\/a>ls command. The ls command lists the files in a directory. In this case, our list of files reflects the contents of our tar file. We haven\u2019t opened it up; we\u2019ve only peeked inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u201c-tvf\u201d flags tell our command to print out a list of all the files in our tarball. In our example above, we can see that all the files in our tarball are in a directory called \u201clinux\u201d. When we open this file up, all of these files will be moved onto our computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
tar Command: Create a .tar File<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In the Linux world, there are a lot of files stored in .tar.gz files. If you\u2019ve got some data you want to store in one, you are in the right place. You can easily compress files and directories into a single tar file using the tar command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
tar -czvf file_name.tar.gz \/path\/to\/folder<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Consider this example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
tar -czvf linux_archive.tar.gz \/home\/careerkarma\/linux<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Our code returns:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a linux\na linux\/names.txt\na linux\/app.txt\na linux\/README.md\na linux\/config\/app.sh<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The output of this command shows us a list of the files that have been archived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This command creates an archive file called \u201clinux_archive.tar.gz\u201d based on the contents of the \/home\/careerkarma\/linux directory. Here\u2019s what the flags mean that we have used:<\/p>\n\n\n\n