tar - tape archiver
tar [-]{crtux}[befhmopqsvwzHLOPXZ014578] [blocksize]
[archive] [replstr]
[-C directory] [-I file] [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.
One of the following flags must be present:
-c Create new archive, or overwrite an existing
archive,
adding the specified files to it.
-r Append the named new files to existing
archive. Note that
this will only work on media on which an endof-file mark
can be overwritten.
-t List contents of archive. If any files are
named on the
command line, only those files will be listed.
-u Alias for -r.
-x Extract files from archive. If any files are
named on the
command line, only those files will be extracted from the
archive. 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 factor
Set blocking factor to use for the archive.
tar 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.
-e Stop after the first error.
-f archive Filename where the archive is stored. Defaults to
/dev/rst0.
-h Follow symbolic links as if they were normal
files or directories.
In extract mode this means that a
directory entry
in the archive will not overwrite an existing symbolic
link, but rather what the link ultimately
points to.
-m Do not preserve modification time.
-O Write old-style (non-POSIX) archives.
-o Don't write directory information that the
older (V7) style
tar is unable to decode. This implies the -O
flag.
-p Preserve user and group ID as well as file
mode regardless
of the current umask(2). The setuid and setgid bits are
only preserved if the user is the superuser.
Only meaningful
in conjunction with the -x flag.
-q Select the first archive member that matches
each pattern
operand. No more than one archive member is
matched for
each pattern. When members of type directory
are matched,
the file hierarchy rooted at that directory is
also
matched.
-s replstr Modify the file or archive member names specified by the
pattern or file operands according to the substitution expression
replstr, using the syntax of the
ed(1) utility
regular expressions. The format of these regular expressions
is:
/old/new/[gp]
As in ed(1), old is a basic regular expression
and new can
contain an ampersand (&), (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:
<original pathname> >> <new pathname>
File or archive member names that substitute
to the empty
string are not selected and will be skipped.
-v Verbose operation mode.
-w Interactively rename files. This option causes tar to
prompt the user for the filename to use when
storing or extracting
files in an archive.
-z Compress archive using gzip.
-C directory This is a positional argument which sets the
working directory
for the following files. When extracting, files will
be extracted into the specified directory;
when creating,
the specified files will be matched from the
directory.
-H Follow symlinks given on command line only.
-L Synonym for the -h option.
-P Do not strip leading slashes (`/') from pathnames. The default
is to strip leading slashes.
-I file This is a positional argument which reads the
names of
files to archive or extract from the given
file, one per
line.
-X Do not cross mount points in the file system.
-Z Compress archive using compress.
The options [-014578] can be used to select one of the compiled-in backup
devices, /dev/rstN.
TMPDIR Path in which to store temporary files.
TAPE Default tape device to use instead of /dev/rst0.
/dev/rst0 default archive name
$ tar c bonvole sekve
Creates an archive on the default tape drive, containing the
files named
bonvole and sekve.
$ tar zcf foriru.tar.gz bonvole sekve
Outputs a gzip(1) compressed archive containing the files
bonvole and
sekve to a file called foriru.tar.gz.
$ tar zcvf backup.tar.gz *.c
Verbosely creates an archive, called backup.tar.gz, of all
files matching
the shell glob(3) function *.c.
$ tar tvzf backup.tar.gz '*.jpeg'
Verbosely lists, but does 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.
For more detailed examples, see pax(1).
tar will exit with one of the following values:
0 All files were processed successfully.
1 An error occurred.
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.
cpio(1), pax(1)
A tar command first appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
Keith Muller at the University of California, San Diego.
The -L flag is not portable to other versions of tar where
it may have a
different meaning.
OpenBSD 3.6 February 7, 2001
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