Tar Manual

GNU tar

GNU

tar: an archiver tool
FTP release, version 1.26, 12 March 2011

John Gilmore, Jay Fenlason et al.

This manual is for GNU tar (version 1.26, 12 March 2011), which creates and extracts files from archives. Copyright c 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy,distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with the Front-Cover Texts being “A GNU Manual”, and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”. (a) The FSF’sBack-Cover Text is: “You have the freedom to copy and modify this GNU manual. Buying copies from the FSF supports it in developing GNU and promoting software freedom.”

Chapter 1: Introduction

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1 Introduction
GNU tar creates and manipulates archives which are actually collections

of many other files; the program provides users with an organized and systematic method for controlling alarge amount of data. The name “tar” originally came from the phrase “Tape ARchive”, but archives need not (and these days, typically do not) reside on tapes.

1.1 What this Book Contains
The first part of this chapter introduces you to various terms that will recur throughout the book. It also tells you who has worked on GNU tar and its documentation, and where you should send bug reports orcomments. The second chapter is a tutorial (see Chapter 2 [Tutorial], page 5) which provides a gentle introduction for people who are new to using tar. It is meant to be self-contained, not requiring any reading from subsequent chapters to make sense. It moves from topic to topic in a logical, progressive order, building on information already explained. Although the tutorial is paced and structuredto allow beginners to learn how to use tar, it is not intended solely for beginners. The tutorial explains how to use the three most frequently used operations (‘create’, ‘list’, and ‘extract’) as well as two frequently used options (‘file’ and ‘verbose’). The other chapters do not refer to the tutorial frequently; however, if a section discusses something which is a complex variant of a basicconcept, there may be a cross-reference to that basic concept. (The entire book, including the tutorial, assumes that the reader understands some basic concepts of using a Unix-type operating system; see Chapter 2 [Tutorial], page 5.) The third chapter presents the remaining five operations, and information about using tar options and option syntax. The other chapters are meant to be used as areference. Each chapter presents everything that needs to be said about a specific topic. One of the chapters (see Chapter 7 [Date input formats], page 119) exists in its entirety in other GNU manuals, and is mostly self-contained. In addition, one section of this manual (see [Standard], page 185) contains a big quote which is taken directly from tar sources. In general, we give both long and short(abbreviated) option names at least once in each section where the relevant option is covered, so that novice readers will become familiar with both styles. (A few options have no short versions, and the relevant sections will indicate this.)

1.2 Some Definitions
The tar program is used to create and manipulate tar archives. An archive is a single file which contains the contents of many files, whilestill identifying the names of the files, their owner(s), and so forth. (In addition,

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GNU tar 1.26

archives record access permissions, user and group, size in bytes, and data modification time. Some archives also record the file names in each archived directory, as well as other file and directory information.) You can use tar to create a new archive in a specified directory. The files...