Extract Files Using the TAR Command on Linux Commonly used to create .tar.gz or .tgz archive files, also known as “tarballs”. This command has many options, but to quickly create an archive using tar, you only need to remember a few letters. The tar command can also extract an archive of the results. The GNU tar command included with the
Linux distribution has built-in compression.
You can create a .tar archive and compress it using gzip or bzip2 compression with a single command. Therefore, the resulting file will be a .tar.gz file or a .tar.bz2 file. Suppose you have a directory called “stuff” in your current directory and you want to save it in a file called archive.tar.gz.
It only provides a list of files or directories, not just one. Suppose you want to compress the / home / ubuntu / Downloads directory, the / usr / local / stuff directory, and the /home/ubuntu/Documents/notes.txt file.
How to Compress and Extract Files Using the TAR Command on Linux
You can also compress old, rarely used files and save them for future use to save disk space. Download a Discord Profile Picture In this post, we’ll look at how to use the tar command to compress files on Linux and some examples of real tars.
The “tar” command stands for “tape archive” and is a basic Unix command for archiving files. By default, this command saves the archive to a .tar file, but you can also save it to a gzip file with a .gz extension. The tar command is generally available on most Linux distributions.
There are alternatives such as gzip and gunzip that specifically process .gz files, and unzip for .zip extensions. These alternatives are not always available. Therefore, check your distribution’s package manager to see if it can be installed as an additional command.
Use the -z option with the tar command to create a new archive using gzip compression. You can use the -x option to extract files from the archive to your current working directory. You can also specify a file name to extract a specific file. Use the -r option to add a file or directory to an existing tarball. This option adds the file to the end of the archive. Use the -A option to add files from one archive to another. Add the file to the end of another archive.
Does the tar command compress?
You can use tar to compress and decompress files. Tar has several options, but only a few have to remember. Advantages of tar: When it comes to compression, the compression ratio of tar is 50%. That is, it is compressed efficiently.
The gzip command is very easy to use. Just type “gzip” followed by the name of the file you want to zip. Unlike the above command, gzip encrypts files “in place”. That is, the original file is replaced with the encrypted file.
How do I compress and unzip a file in Linux?
Both Linux and UNIX contain various commands for compressing and decompressing (read as decompressing compressed files). You can use the gzip, bzip2, and zip commands to compress files. Compressed files & # 40; Decompress & # 41; You can use the gzip -d, bunzip2 (bzip2 -d), and unzip commands.
You can use the unzip or tar command to extract (decompress) files on Linux or Unix-like operating systems. Unzip is a program for decompressing, listing, testing, and compressing (extracting) files and may not be installed by default.