Archiving with tar

Occasionally, you’ll want to take a bunch of files and make them into one file, such as when you’re archiving information, for example. You might think of it as tossing a bunch of toys into a toy box—that is, taking a bunch of related things and storing them all in one place.

Using tar (which came from “tape archive”), you can take a bunch of files and store them as a single, uncompressed file (see Code Listing 13.5). You’ll use tar files not only to store information, but also to create a single source for compressing and gzipping files, which are discussed later in this chapter.

Code Listing 13.5. Tarring files binds them all together into a single file.
[ejr@hobbes compression]$ ls -l
total 2290
drwxrwxr-x    2 ejr     users    1024 Jul 23 10:56 Feather
drwxrwxr-x    2 ejr     users    1024 Jul 23 10:49 Zipadeedoodah
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    53678 Jul 23 06:42 bigfile.gz
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    53678 Jul 23 10:16 bigfile.new.gz
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    73989 Jul 23 10:16 bigfile.uue
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    128886 Jul 23 11:45 file1.htm
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    128886 Jul 23 11:45 file2.html
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    686080 Jul 23 10:41 folder.tar
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    268156 Jul 23 06:53 folderzip.zip
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    128886 Jul 23 06:37 fortunes1.txt
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    55124 Jul 23 06:38 fortunes1.zip
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    0 Jul 23 11:21 gzip
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    73978 Jul 23 11:15 home.gz.uue
-rw-r-r-      1 ejr     users    177607 Jul 27 09:34 house.uue
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    53792 Jul 23 06:52 newzip.zip
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    128886 Jul 23 08:19 ournewhouse.jpg
-rw-rw-r-     1 ejr     users    128886 Jul 27 09:52 rowboat.jpg
-rw-r-r-      1 ejr     users    177606 Jul 27 09:51 rowboat.uue
drwxrwxr-x    3 ejr     users    1024 Jul 23 12:56 temp
[ejr@hobbes compression]$ tar -cf tarredfilename.tar Feather
[ejr@hobbes compression]$

To Archive a Directory with tar:

1.
ls -l

For starters, type ls -l at the shell prompt to verify the name of the directory you’re going to tar.

2.
tar -cf tarredfilename.tar Feather

Type tar followed by

  • The -cf flags (to create a file)

  • The name you want the tarred (archived) file to have (tarredfilename.tar in this example)

  • The name (or names) of the directory or files to tar (Feather, here)

✓ Tips

  • See the section called Combining Commands later in this chapter for timesaving ideas for combining and compressing files all in one fell swoop.

  • Some versions of tar also support gzip, so you can use tar –czf tarredfilename.tgz Feather to tar and gzip all at once.

  • You can add the v flag to the tar command flags (-vcf) to get a verbose description of what’s being tarred.

  • If you want to sound like a real Unix geek, refer to tarred files as “tarballs.”


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