| TAR(1) | General Commands Manual | TAR(1) |
tar — tape
archiver
tar |
{crtux}[014578beFfHhjLmNOoPpqsvwXZz]
[blocking-factor | format | archive | replstr]
[-C directory]
[-I file]
[file ...] |
tar |
{-crtux}
[-014578eHhjLmNOoPpqvwXZz]
[-b blocking-factor]
[-C directory]
[-F format]
[-f archive]
[-I file]
[-s replstr]
[file ...] |
The tar command creates, adds files to, or
extracts files from an archive file in “tar” format. A tar
archive is often stored on a magnetic tape, but can be stored equally well
on a floppy, CD-ROM, or in a regular disk file.
In the first (legacy) form, all option flags except for
-C and -I must be contained
within the first argument to tar and must not be
prefixed by a hyphen (‘-’). Option arguments, if any, are
processed as subsequent arguments to tar and are
processed in the order in which their corresponding option flags have been
presented on the command line.
In the second and preferred form, option flags may be given in any order and are immediately followed by their corresponding option argument values.
One of the following flags must be present:
-c-r-ttar will list all archive members that
match each pattern.-u-r.-xtar will extract all
archive members that match each pattern.
If more than one copy of a file exists in the archive, later copies will overwrite earlier copies during extraction. The file mode and modification time are preserved if possible. The file mode is subject to modification by the umask(2).
In addition to the flags mentioned above, any of the following flags may be used:
-b
blocking-factortar
uses 512-byte blocks. The default is 20, the maximum is 126. Archives with
a blocking factor larger than 63 violate the POSIX standard and will not
be portable to all systems.-C
directory-e-F
formatpax. tar currently
supports the following formats:
bcpiotar
and is repaired.cpiotar and is repaired.sv4cpiotar and is
repaired.sv4crctar and is repaired.tar-o.ustarpaxtar will detect and report any file
that it is unable to store or extract as the result of any specific
archive format restrictions. The individual archive formats may impose
additional restrictions on use. Typical archive format restrictions
include (but are not limited to): file pathname length, file size, link
pathname length, and the type of the file.
-f
archiveTAPE environment variable.-H-h-I
file-j-L-h option.-m-N-O-otar is unable to decode. This implies the
-O flag.-P-p-x flag.-q-s
replstrThe format of these regular expressions is
/old/new/[gp]As in ed(1),
old is a basic regular expression (see
re_format(7)) and
new can contain an ampersand
(‘&’),
‘\n’ (where
n is a digit) back-references, or subexpression
matching. The old string may also contain newline
characters. Any non-null character can be used as a delimiter
(‘/’ is shown here). Multiple
-s expressions can be specified. The expressions
are applied in the order they are specified on the command line,
terminating with the first successful substitution.
The optional trailing g continues to
apply the substitution expression to the pathname substring, which
starts with the first character following the end of the last successful
substitution. The first unsuccessful substitution stops the operation of
the g option. The optional trailing
p will cause the final result of a successful
substitution to be written to standard error in the following
format:
File or archive member names that substitute to the empty string are not selected and will be skipped.
-v-v is specified
multiple times or if the -t option is also
specified, tar will use a long format for listing
files, similar to ls(1)
-l.-wtar
to prompt the user for the filename to use when storing or extracting
files in an archive.-X-Z-zThe options [-014578] can be used to
select one of the compiled-in backup devices,
/dev/rstN.
The tar utility exits with one of the
following values:
Create an archive on the default tape drive, containing the files named bonvole and sekve:
$ tar c bonvole sekveCreate a gzip(1) compressed archive, called foriru.tar.gz, containing the files bonvole and sekve:
$ tar czf foriru.tar.gz bonvole
sekveVerbosely create an archive, called backup.tar.gz, of all files matching the shell glob(7) function *.c:
$ tar cvzf backup.tar.gz
*.cVerbosely list, but do not extract, all files ending in .jpeg from a compressed archive named backup.tar.gz. Note that the glob pattern has been quoted to avoid expansion by the shell:
$ tar tvzf backup.tar.gz
'*.jpeg'Verbosely extract an archive, called foo.tar.gz, to the directory /var/foo:
$ tar xvzf foo.tar.gz -C
/var/fooFor more detailed examples, see pax(1).
Whenever tar cannot create a file or a
link when extracting an archive or cannot find a file while writing an
archive, or cannot preserve the user ID, group ID, file mode, or access and
modification times when the -p option is specified,
a diagnostic message is written to standard error and a non-zero exit value
will be returned, but processing will continue. In the case where
tar cannot create a link to a file,
tar will not create a second copy of the file.
If the extraction of a file from an archive is prematurely
terminated by a signal or error, tar may have only
partially extracted the file the user wanted. Additionally, the file modes
of extracted files and directories may have incorrect file bits, and the
modification and access times may be wrong.
If the creation of an archive is prematurely terminated by a
signal or error, tar may have only partially created
the archive, which may violate the specific archive format
specification.
A tar command first appeared in
Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
Keith Muller at the University of California, San Diego.
The -j and -L
flags are not portable to other versions of tar
where they may have a different meaning.
| April 16, 2024 | openbsd |