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TAR(1) |
GNU TAR Manual |
TAR(1) |
tar - an archiving utility
tar
{A|c|d|r|t|u|x}[GnSkUWOmpsMBiajJzZhPlRvwo]
[ARG...]
tar -A [OPTIONS] ARCHIVE ARCHIVE
tar -c [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS]
[FILE...]
tar -d [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS]
[FILE...]
tar -t [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS]
[MEMBER...]
tar -r [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS]
[FILE...]
tar -u [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS]
[FILE...]
tar -x [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS]
[MEMBER...]
tar {--catenate|--concatenate} [OPTIONS]
ARCHIVE ARCHIVE
tar --create [--file ARCHIVE]
[OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar {--diff|--compare} [--file
ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar --delete [--file ARCHIVE]
[OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]
tar --append [-f ARCHIVE]
[OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar --list [-f ARCHIVE]
[OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]
tar --test-label [--file ARCHIVE]
[OPTIONS] [LABEL...]
tar --update [--file ARCHIVE]
[OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar --update [-f ARCHIVE]
[OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar {--extract|--get} [-f
ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]
This manpage is a short description of GNU tar. For a detailed
discussion, including examples and usage recommendations, refer to the GNU
Tar Manual available in texinfo format. If the info reader and the
tar documentation are properly installed on your system, the command
info tar
should give you access to the complete manual.
You can also view the manual using the info mode in
emacs(1), or find it in various formats online at
http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual
If any discrepancies occur between this manpage and the GNU Tar
Manual, the later shall be considered the authoritative source.
GNU tar is an archiving program designed to store multiple files in a
single file (an archive), and to manipulate such archives. The archive
can be either a regular file or a device (e.g. a tape drive, hence the name of
the program, which stands for tape archiver), which can be
located either on the local or on a remote machine.
Options to GNU tar can be given in three different styles. In
traditional style, the first argument is a cluster of option letters
and all subsequent arguments supply arguments to those options that require
them. The arguments are read in the same order as the option letters. Any
command line words that remain after all options has been processed are
treated as non-optional arguments: file or archive member names.
For example, the c option requires creating the archive,
the v option requests the verbose operation, and the f option
takes an argument that sets the name of the archive to operate upon. The
following command, written in the traditional style, instructs tar to store
all files from the directory /etc into the archive file
etc.tar verbosely listing the files being archived:
tar cfv etc.tar /etc
In UNIX or short-option style, each option letter is
prefixed with a single dash, as in other command line utilities. If an
option takes argument, the argument follows it, either as a separate command
line word, or immediately following the option. However, if the option takes
an optional argument, the argument must follow the option letter
without any intervening whitespace, as in -g/tmp/snar.db.
Any number of options not taking arguments can be clustered
together after a single dash, e.g. -vkp. Options that take arguments
(whether mandatory or optional), can appear at the end of such a cluster,
e.g. -vkpf a.tar.
The example command above written in the short-option style
could look like:
tar -cvf etc.tar /etc
or
tar -c -v -f etc.tar /etc
In GNU or long-option style, each option begins with
two dashes and has a meaningful name, consisting of lower-case letters and
dashes. When used, the long option can be abbreviated to its initial
letters, provided that this does not create ambiguity. Arguments to long
options are supplied either as a separate command line word, immediately
following the option, or separated from the option by an equals sign with no
intervening whitespace. Optional arguments must always use the latter
method.
Here are several ways of writing the example command in this
style:
tar --create --file etc.tar --verbose /etc
or (abbreviating some options):
tar --cre --file=etc.tar --verb /etc
The options in all three styles can be intermixed, although doing
so with old options is not encouraged.
The options listed in the table below tell GNU tar what operation it is
to perform. Exactly one of them must be given. Meaning of non-optional
arguments depends on the operation mode requested.
- -A, --catenate, --concatenate
- Append archive to the end of another archive. The arguments are treated as
the names of archives to append. All archives must be of the same format
as the archive they are appended to, otherwise the resulting archive might
be unusable with non-GNU implementations of tar. Notice also that
when more than one archive is given, the members from archives other than
the first one will be accessible in the resulting archive only if using
the -i (--ignore-zeros) option.
Compressed archives cannot be concatenated.
- -c, --create
- Create a new archive. Arguments supply the names of the files to be
archived. Directories are archived recursively, unless the
--no-recursion option is given.
- -d, --diff, --compare
- Find differences between archive and file system. The arguments are
optional and specify archive members to compare. If not given, the current
working directory is assumed.
- --delete
- Delete from the archive. The arguments supply names of the archive members
to be removed. At least one argument must be given.
This option does not operate on compressed archives. There is
no short option equivalent.
- -r, --append
- Append files to the end of an archive. Arguments have the same meaning as
for -c (--create).
- -t, --list
- List the contents of an archive. Arguments are optional. When given, they
specify the names of the members to list.
- --test-label
- Test the archive volume label and exit. When used without arguments, it
prints the volume label (if any) and exits with status 0. When one
or more command line arguments are given. tar compares the volume
label with each argument. It exits with code 0 if a match is found,
and with code 1 otherwise. No output is displayed, unless used
together with the -v (--verbose) option.
There is no short option equivalent for this option.
- -u, --update
- Append files which are newer than the corresponding copy in the archive.
Arguments have the same meaning as with -c and -r options.
Notice, that newer files don't replace their old archive copies, but
instead are appended to the end of archive. The resulting archive can thus
contain several members of the same name, corresponding to various
versions of the same file.
- -x, --extract, --get
- Extract files from an archive. Arguments are optional. When given, they
specify names of the archive members to be extracted.
- --show-defaults
- Show built-in defaults for various tar options and exit. No
arguments are allowed.
- -?, --help
- Display a short option summary and exit. No arguments allowed.
- --usage
- Display a list of available options and exit. No arguments allowed.
- --version
- Print program version and copyright information and exit.
- --check-device
- Check device numbers when creating incremental archives (default).
- -g, --listed-incremental=FILE
- Handle new GNU-format incremental backups. FILE is the name of a
snapshot file, where tar stores additional information which is
used to decide which files changed since the previous incremental dump
and, consequently, must be dumped again. If FILE does not exist
when creating an archive, it will be created and all files will be added
to the resulting archive (the level 0 dump). To create incremental
archives of non-zero level N, create a copy of the snapshot file
created during the level N-1, and use it as FILE.
When listing or extracting, the actual contents of FILE
is not inspected, it is needed only due to syntactical requirements. It
is therefore common practice to use /dev/null in its place.
- --hole-detection=METHOD
- Use METHOD to detect holes in sparse files. This option implies
--sparse. Valid values for METHOD are seek and
raw. Default is seek with fallback to raw when not
applicable.
- -G, --incremental
- Handle old GNU-format incremental backups.
- --ignore-failed-read
- Do not exit with nonzero on unreadable files.
- --level=NUMBER
- Set dump level for created listed-incremental archive. Currently only
--level=0 is meaningful: it instructs tar to truncate the
snapshot file before dumping, thereby forcing a level 0 dump.
- -n, --seek
- Assume the archive is seekable. Normally tar determines
automatically whether the archive can be seeked or not. This option is
intended for use in cases when such recognition fails. It takes effect
only if the archive is open for reading (e.g. with --list or
--extract options).
- --no-check-device
- Do not check device numbers when creating incremental archives.
- --no-seek
- Assume the archive is not seekable.
- --occurrence[=N]
- Process only the Nth occurrence of each file in the archive. This
option is valid only when used with one of the following subcommands:
--delete, --diff, --extract or --list and when
a list of files is given either on the command line or via the -T
option. The default N is 1.
- --restrict
- Disable the use of some potentially harmful options.
- --sparse-version=MAJOR[.MINOR]
- Set version of the sparse format to use (implies --sparse). This
option implies --sparse. Valid argument values are 0.0,
0.1, and 1.0. For a detailed discussion of sparse formats,
refer to the GNU Tar Manual, appendix D,
"Sparse Formats". Using info reader, it can be
accessed running the following command: info tar 'Sparse
Formats'.
- -S, --sparse
- Handle sparse files efficiently. Some files in the file system may have
segments which were actually never written (quite often these are database
files created by such systems as DBM). When given this option,
tar attempts to determine if the file is sparse prior to archiving
it, and if so, to reduce the resulting archive size by not dumping empty
parts of the file.
These options control tar actions when extracting a file over an existing
copy on disk.
- -k, --keep-old-files
- Don't replace existing files when extracting.
- --keep-newer-files
- Don't replace existing files that are newer than their archive
copies.
- --keep-directory-symlink
- Don't replace existing symlinks to directories when extracting.
- --no-overwrite-dir
- Preserve metadata of existing directories.
- --one-top-level[=DIR]
- Extract all files into DIR, or, if used without argument, into a
subdirectory named by the base name of the archive (minus standard
compression suffixes recognizable by --auto-compress).
- --overwrite
- Overwrite existing files when extracting.
- --overwrite-dir
- Overwrite metadata of existing directories when extracting (default).
- --recursive-unlink
- Recursively remove all files in the directory prior to extracting it.
- --remove-files
- Remove files from disk after adding them to the archive.
- --skip-old-files
- Don't replace existing files when extracting, silently skip over
them.
- -U, --unlink-first
- Remove each file prior to extracting over it.
- -W, --verify
- Verify the archive after writing it.
- --ignore-command-error
- Ignore subprocess exit codes.
- --no-ignore-command-error
- Treat non-zero exit codes of children as error (default).
- -O, --to-stdout
- Extract files to standard output.
- --to-command=COMMAND
- Pipe extracted files to COMMAND. The argument is the pathname of an
external program, optionally with command line arguments. The program will
be invoked and the contents of the file being extracted supplied to it on
its standard input. Additional data will be supplied via the following
environment variables:
- TAR_FILETYPE
- Type of the file. It is a single letter with the following meaning:
f Regular file
d Directory
l Symbolic link
h Hard link
b Block device
c Character device
Currently only regular files are supported.
- TAR_MODE
- File mode, an octal number.
- TAR_FILENAME
- The name of the file.
- TAR_REALNAME
- Name of the file as stored in the archive.
- TAR_UNAME
- Name of the file owner.
- TAR_GNAME
- Name of the file owner group.
- TAR_ATIME
- Time of last access. It is a decimal number, representing seconds since
the Epoch. If the archive provides times with nanosecond precision, the
nanoseconds are appended to the timestamp after a decimal point.
- TAR_MTIME
- Time of last modification.
- TAR_CTIME
- Time of last status change.
- TAR_SIZE
- Size of the file.
- TAR_UID
- UID of the file owner.
- TAR_GID
- GID of the file owner.
Additionally, the following variables contain information about
tar operation mode and the archive being processed:
- TAR_VERSION
- GNU tar version number.
- TAR_ARCHIVE
- The name of the archive tar is processing.
- TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR
- Current blocking factor, i.e. number of 512-byte blocks in a record.
- TAR_VOLUME
- Ordinal number of the volume tar is processing (set if reading a
multi-volume archive).
- TAR_FORMAT
- Format of the archive being processed. One of: gnu, oldgnu,
posix, ustar, v7.
- TAR_SUBCOMMAND
- A short option (with a leading dash) describing the operation tar
is executing.
- --atime-preserve[=METHOD]
- Preserve access times on dumped files, either by restoring the times after
reading (METHOD=replace, this is the default) or by not
setting the times in the first place (METHOD=system)
- --delay-directory-restore
- Delay setting modification times and permissions of extracted directories
until the end of extraction. Use this option when extracting from an
archive which has unusual member ordering.
- --group=NAME[:GID]
- Force NAME as group for added files. If GID is not supplied,
NAME can be either a user name or numeric GID. In this case the
missing part (GID or name) will be inferred from the current host's group
database.
When used with --group-map=FILE, affects only
those files whose owner group is not listed in FILE.
- --group-map=FILE
- Read group translation map from FILE. Empty lines are ignored.
Comments are introduced with # sign and extend to the end of line.
Each non-empty line in FILE defines translation for a single group.
It must consist of two fields, delimited by any amount of whitespace:
OLDGRP NEWGRP[:NEWGID]
OLDGRP is either a valid group name or a GID prefixed
with +. Unless NEWGID is supplied, NEWGRP must also
be either a valid group name or a +GID. Otherwise, both
NEWGRP and NEWGID need not be listed in the system group
database.
As a result, each input file with owner group OLDGRP
will be stored in archive with owner group NEWGRP and GID
NEWGID.
- --mode=CHANGES
- Force symbolic mode CHANGES for added files.
- --mtime=DATE-OR-FILE
- Set mtime for added files. DATE-OR-FILE is either a date/time in
almost arbitrary format, or the name of an existing file. In the latter
case the mtime of that file will be used.
- -m, --touch
- Don't extract file modified time.
- --no-delay-directory-restore
- Cancel the effect of the prior --delay-directory-restore
option.
- --no-same-owner
- Extract files as yourself (default for ordinary users).
- --no-same-permissions
- Apply the user's umask when extracting permissions from the archive
(default for ordinary users).
- --numeric-owner
- Always use numbers for user/group names.
- --owner=NAME[:UID]
- Force NAME as owner for added files. If UID is not supplied,
NAME can be either a user name or numeric UID. In this case the
missing part (UID or name) will be inferred from the current host's user
database.
When used with --owner-map=FILE, affects only
those files whose owner is not listed in FILE.
- --owner-map=FILE
- Read owner translation map from FILE. Empty lines are ignored.
Comments are introduced with # sign and extend to the end of line.
Each non-empty line in FILE defines translation for a single UID.
It must consist of two fields, delimited by any amount of whitespace:
OLDUSR NEWUSR[:NEWUID]
OLDUSR is either a valid user name or a UID prefixed
with +. Unless NEWUID is supplied, NEWUSR must also
be either a valid user name or a +UID. Otherwise, both
NEWUSR and NEWUID need not be listed in the system user
database.
As a result, each input file owned by OLDUSR will be
stored in archive with owner name NEWUSR and UID
NEWUID.
- -p, --preserve-permissions, --same-permissions
- extract information about file permissions (default for superuser)
- --same-owner
- Try extracting files with the same ownership as exists in the archive
(default for superuser).
- -s, --preserve-order, --same-order
- Sort names to extract to match archive
- --sort=ORDER
- When creating an archive, sort directory entries according to
ORDER, which is one of none, name, or inode.
The default is --sort=none, which stores archive
members in the same order as returned by the operating system.
Using --sort=name ensures the member ordering in the
created archive is uniform and reproducible.
Using --sort=inode reduces the number of disk seeks
made when creating the archive and thus can considerably speed up
archivation. This sorting order is supported only if the underlying
system provides the necessary information.
- --acls
- Enable POSIX ACLs support.
- --no-acls
- Disable POSIX ACLs support.
- --selinux
- Enable SELinux context support.
- --no-selinux
- Disable SELinux context support.
- --xattrs
- Enable extended attributes support.
- --no-xattrs
- Disable extended attributes support.
- --xattrs-exclude=PATTERN
- Specify the exclude pattern for xattr keys. PATTERN is a POSIX
regular expression, e.g. --xattrs-exclude='^user.', to exclude
attributes from the user namespace.
- --xattrs-include=PATTERN
- Specify the include pattern for xattr keys. PATTERN is a POSIX
regular expression.
- -f, --file=ARCHIVE
- Use archive file or device ARCHIVE. If this option is not given,
tar will first examine the environment variable `TAPE'. If it is
set, its value will be used as the archive name. Otherwise, tar
will assume the compiled-in default. The default value can be inspected
either using the --show-defaults option, or at the end of the
tar --help output.
An archive name that has a colon in it specifies a file or
device on a remote machine. The part before the colon is taken as the
machine name or IP address, and the part after it as the file or device
pathname, e.g.:
--file=remotehost:/dev/sr0
An optional username can be prefixed to the hostname, placing
a @ sign between them.
By default, the remote host is accessed via the rsh(1)
command. Nowadays it is common to use ssh(1) instead. You can do
so by giving the following command line option:
--rsh-command=/usr/bin/ssh
The remote machine should have the rmt(8) command
installed. If its pathname does not match tar's default, you can
inform tar about the correct pathname using the
--rmt-command option.
- --force-local
- Archive file is local even if it has a colon.
- -F, --info-script=COMMAND,
--new-volume-script=COMMAND
- Run COMMAND at the end of each tape (implies -M). The
command can include arguments. When started, it will inherit tar's
environment plus the following variables:
- TAR_VERSION
- GNU tar version number.
- TAR_ARCHIVE
- The name of the archive tar is processing.
- TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR
- Current blocking factor, i.e. number of 512-byte blocks in a record.
- TAR_VOLUME
- Ordinal number of the volume tar is processing (set if reading a
multi-volume archive).
- TAR_FORMAT
- Format of the archive being processed. One of: gnu, oldgnu,
posix, ustar, v7.
- TAR_SUBCOMMAND
- A short option (with a leading dash) describing the operation tar
is executing.
- TAR_FD
- File descriptor which can be used to communicate the new volume name to
tar.
If the info script fails, tar exits; otherwise, it begins
writing the next volume.
- -L, --tape-length=N
- Change tape after writing Nx1024 bytes. If N is followed by
a size suffix (see the subsection Size suffixes below), the suffix
specifies the multiplicative factor to be used instead of 1024.
This option implies -M.
- -M, --multi-volume
- Create/list/extract multi-volume archive.
- --rmt-command=COMMAND
- Use COMMAND instead of rmt when accessing remote archives.
See the description of the -f option, above.
- --rsh-command=COMMAND
- Use COMMAND instead of rsh when accessing remote archives.
See the description of the -f option, above.
- --volno-file=FILE
- When this option is used in conjunction with --multi-volume,
tar will keep track of which volume of a multi-volume archive it is
working in FILE.
- -b, --blocking-factor=BLOCKS
- Set record size to BLOCKSx512 bytes.
- -B, --read-full-records
- When listing or extracting, accept incomplete input records after
end-of-file marker.
- -i, --ignore-zeros
- Ignore zeroed blocks in archive. Normally two consecutive 512-blocks
filled with zeroes mean EOF and tar stops reading after encountering them.
This option instructs it to read further and is useful when reading
archives created with the -A option.
- --record-size=NUMBER
- Set record size. NUMBER is the number of bytes per record. It must
be multiple of 512. It can can be suffixed with a size
suffix, e.g. --record-size=10K, for 10 Kilobytes. See the
subsection Size suffixes, for a list of valid suffixes.
- -H, --format=FORMAT
- Create archive of the given format. Valid formats are:
- gnu
- GNU tar 1.13.x format
- oldgnu
- GNU format as per tar <= 1.12.
- pax, posix
- POSIX 1003.1-2001 (pax) format.
- ustar
- POSIX 1003.1-1988 (ustar) format.
- v7
- Old V7 tar format.
- --old-archive, --portability
- Same as --format=v7.
- --pax-option=keyword[[:]=value][,keyword[[:]=value]]...
- Control pax keywords when creating PAX archives (-H
pax). This option is equivalent to the -o option of the
pax(1) utility.
- --posix
- Same as --format=posix.
- -V, --label=TEXT
- Create archive with volume name TEXT. If listing or extracting, use
TEXT as a globbing pattern for volume name.
- -a, --auto-compress
- Use archive suffix to determine the compression program.
- -I, --use-compress-program=COMMAND
- Filter data through COMMAND. It must accept the -d option,
for decompression. The argument can contain command line options.
- -j, --bzip2
- Filter the archive through bzip2(1).
- -J, --xz
- Filter the archive through xz(1).
- --lzip
- Filter the archive through lzip(1).
- --lzma
- Filter the archive through lzma(1).
- --lzop
- Filter the archive through lzop(1).
- --no-auto-compress
- Do not use archive suffix to determine the compression program.
- -z, --gzip, --gunzip, --ungzip
- Filter the archive through gzip(1).
- -Z, --compress, --uncompress
- Filter the archive through compress(1).
- --zstd
- Filter the archive through zstd(1).
- --add-file=FILE
- Add FILE to the archive (useful if its name starts with a
dash).
- --backup[=CONTROL]
- Backup before removal. The CONTROL argument, if supplied, controls
the backup policy. Its valid values are:
- none, off
- Never make backups.
- t, numbered
- Make numbered backups.
- nil, existing
- Make numbered backups if numbered backups exist, simple backups
otherwise.
- never, simple
- Always make simple backups
If CONTROL is not given, the value is taken from the
VERSION_CONTROL environment variable. If it is not set,
existing is assumed.
- -C, --directory=DIR
- Change to DIR before performing any operations. This option is
order-sensitive, i.e. it affects all options that follow.
- --exclude=PATTERN
- Exclude files matching PATTERN, a glob(3)-style wildcard
pattern.
- --exclude-backups
- Exclude backup and lock files.
- --exclude-caches
- Exclude contents of directories containing file CACHEDIR.TAG,
except for the tag file itself.
- --exclude-caches-all
- Exclude directories containing file CACHEDIR.TAG and the file
itself.
- --exclude-caches-under
- Exclude everything under directories containing CACHEDIR.TAG
- --exclude-ignore=FILE
- Before dumping a directory, see if it contains FILE. If so, read
exclusion patterns from this file. The patterns affect only the directory
itself.
- --exclude-ignore-recursive=FILE
- Same as --exclude-ignore, except that patterns from FILE
affect both the directory and all its subdirectories.
- --exclude-tag=FILE
- Exclude contents of directories containing FILE, except for
FILE itself.
- --exclude-tag-all=FILE
- Exclude directories containing FILE.
- --exclude-tag-under=FILE
- Exclude everything under directories containing FILE.
- --exclude-vcs
- Exclude version control system directories.
- --exclude-vcs-ignores
- Exclude files that match patterns read from VCS-specific ignore files.
Supported files are: .cvsignore, .gitignore,
.bzrignore, and .hgignore.
- -h, --dereference
- Follow symlinks; archive and dump the files they point to.
- --hard-dereference
- Follow hard links; archive and dump the files they refer to.
- -K, --starting-file=MEMBER
- Begin at the given member in the archive.
- --newer-mtime=DATE
- Work on files whose data changed after the DATE. If DATE
starts with / or . it is taken to be a file name; the mtime
of that file is used as the date.
- --no-null
- Disable the effect of the previous --null option.
- --no-recursion
- Avoid descending automatically in directories.
- --no-unquote
- Do not unquote input file or member names.
- --no-verbatim-files-from
- Treat each line read from a file list as if it were supplied in the
command line. I.e., leading and trailing whitespace is removed and, if the
resulting string begins with a dash, it is treated as tar command
line option.
This is the default behavior. The
--no-verbatim-files-from option is provided as a way to restore
it after --verbatim-files-from option.
This option is positional: it affects all --files-from
options that occur after it in, until --verbatim-files-from
option or end of line, whichever occurs first.
It is implied by the --no-null option.
- --null
- Instruct subsequent -T options to read null-terminated names
verbatim (disables special handling of names that start with a dash).
See also --verbatim-files-from.
- -N, --newer=DATE,
--after-date=DATE
- Only store files newer than DATE. If DATE starts with / or
. it is taken to be a file name; the mtime of that file is used as
the date.
- --one-file-system
- Stay in local file system when creating archive.
- -P, --absolute-names
- Don't strip leading slashes from file names when creating archives.
- --recursion
- Recurse into directories (default).
- --suffix=STRING
- Backup before removal, override usual suffix. Default suffix is ~,
unless overridden by environment variable
SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX.
- -T, --files-from=FILE
- Get names to extract or create from FILE.
Unless specified otherwise, the FILE must contain a
list of names separated by ASCII LF (i.e. one name per line). The
names read are handled the same way as command line arguments. They
undergo quote removal and word splitting, and any string that starts
with a - is handled as tar command line option.
If this behavior is undesirable, it can be turned off using
the --verbatim-files-from option.
The --null option instructs tar that the names
in FILE are separated by ASCII NUL character, instead of
LF. It is useful if the list is generated by find(1)
-print0 predicate.
- --unquote
- Unquote file or member names (default).
- --verbatim-files-from
- Treat each line obtained from a file list as a file name, even if it
starts with a dash. File lists are supplied with the --files-from
(-T) option. The default behavior is to handle names supplied in
file lists as if they were typed in the command line, i.e. any names
starting with a dash are treated as tar options. The
--verbatim-files-from option disables this behavior.
This option affects all --files-from options that occur
after it in the command line. Its effect is reverted by the
--no-verbatim-files-from} option.
This option is implied by the --null option.
See also --add-file.
- -X, --exclude-from=FILE
- Exclude files matching patterns listed in FILE.
- --strip-components=NUMBER
- Strip NUMBER leading components from file names on extraction.
- --transform=EXPRESSION,
--xform=EXPRESSION
- Use sed replace EXPRESSION to transform file names.
These options affect both exclude and include patterns.
- --anchored
- Patterns match file name start.
- --ignore-case
- Ignore case.
- --no-anchored
- Patterns match after any / (default for exclusion).
- --no-ignore-case
- Case sensitive matching (default).
- --no-wildcards
- Verbatim string matching.
- --no-wildcards-match-slash
- Wildcards do not match /.
- --wildcards
- Use wildcards (default for exclusion).
- --wildcards-match-slash
- Wildcards match / (default for exclusion).
- --checkpoint[=N]
- Display progress messages every Nth record (default 10).
- --checkpoint-action=ACTION
- Run ACTION on each checkpoint.
- --clamp-mtime
- Only set time when the file is more recent than what was given with
--mtime.
- --full-time
- Print file time to its full resolution.
- --index-file=FILE
- Send verbose output to FILE.
- -l, --check-links
- Print a message if not all links are dumped.
- --no-quote-chars=STRING
- Disable quoting for characters from STRING.
- --quote-chars=STRING
- Additionally quote characters from STRING.
- --quoting-style=STYLE
- Set quoting style for file and member names. Valid values for STYLE
are literal, shell, shell-always, c,
c-maybe, escape, locale, clocale.
- -R, --block-number
- Show block number within archive with each message.
- --show-omitted-dirs
- When listing or extracting, list each directory that does not match search
criteria.
- --show-transformed-names, --show-stored-names
- Show file or archive names after transformation by --strip and
--transform options.
- --totals[=SIGNAL]
- Print total bytes after processing the archive. If SIGNAL is given,
print total bytes when this signal is delivered. Allowed signals are:
SIGHUP, SIGQUIT, SIGINT, SIGUSR1, and
SIGUSR2. The SIG prefix can be omitted.
- --utc
- Print file modification times in UTC.
- -v, --verbose
- Verbosely list files processed. Each instance of this option on the
command line increases the verbosity level by one. The maximum verbosity
level is 3. For a detailed discussion of how various verbosity levels
affect tar's output, please refer to GNU Tar Manual,
subsection 2.5.1 "The --verbose Option".
- --warning=KEYWORD
- Enable or disable warning messages identified by KEYWORD. The
messages are suppressed if KEYWORD is prefixed with no- and
enabled otherwise.
Multiple --warning messages accumulate.
Keywords controlling general tar operation:
- all
- Enable all warning messages. This is the default.
- none
- Disable all warning messages.
- filename-with-nuls
- "%s: file name read contains nul character"
- alone-zero-block
- "A lone zero block at %s"
Keywords applicable for tar --create:
- cachedir
- "%s: contains a cache directory tag %s; %s"
- file-shrank
- "%s: File shrank by %s bytes; padding with zeros"
- xdev
- "%s: file is on a different filesystem; not dumped"
- file-ignored
- "%s: Unknown file type; file ignored"
"%s: socket ignored"
"%s: door ignored"
- file-unchanged
- "%s: file is unchanged; not dumped"
- ignore-archive
- "%s: file is the archive; not dumped"
- file-removed
- "%s: File removed before we read it"
- file-changed
- "%s: file changed as we read it"
- failed-read
- Suppresses warnings about unreadable files or directories. This keyword
applies only if used together with the --ignore-failed-read
option.
Keywords applicable for tar --extract:
- existing-file
- "%s: skipping existing file"
- timestamp
- "%s: implausibly old time stamp %s"
"%s: time stamp %s is %s s in the future"
- contiguous-cast
- "Extracting contiguous files as regular files"
- symlink-cast
- "Attempting extraction of symbolic links as hard links"
- unknown-cast
- "%s: Unknown file type '%c', extracted as normal file"
- ignore-newer
- "Current %s is newer or same age"
- unknown-keyword
- "Ignoring unknown extended header keyword '%s'"
- decompress-program
- Controls verbose description of failures occurring when trying to run
alternative decompressor programs. This warning is disabled by default
(unless --verbose is used). A common example of what you can get
when using this warning is:
$ tar --warning=decompress-program -x -f archive.Z
tar (child): cannot run compress: No such file or directory
tar (child): trying gzip
This means that tar first tried to decompress
archive.Z using compress, and, when that failed, switched
to gzip.
- record-size
- "Record size = %lu blocks"
Keywords controlling incremental extraction:
- rename-directory
- "%s: Directory has been renamed from %s"
"%s: Directory has been renamed"
- new-directory
- "%s: Directory is new"
- xdev
- "%s: directory is on a different device: not purging"
- bad-dumpdir
- "Malformed dumpdir: 'X' never used"
- -w, --interactive, --confirmation
- Ask for confirmation for every action.
- -o
- When creating, same as --old-archive. When extracting, same as
--no-same-owner.
Suffix Units Byte Equivalent
b Blocks SIZE x 512
B Kilobytes SIZE x 1024
c Bytes SIZE
G Gigabytes SIZE x 1024^3
K Kilobytes SIZE x 1024
k Kilobytes SIZE x 1024
M Megabytes SIZE x 1024^2
P Petabytes SIZE x 1024^5
T Terabytes SIZE x 1024^4
w Words SIZE x 2
Tar exit code indicates whether it was able to successfully perform the
requested operation, and if not, what kind of error occurred.
- 0
- Successful termination.
- 1
- Some files differ. If tar was invoked with the --compare
(--diff, -d) command line option, this means that some files
in the archive differ from their disk counterparts. If tar was given one
of the --create, --append or --update options, this
exit code means that some files were changed while being archived and so
the resulting archive does not contain the exact copy of the file
set.
- 2
- Fatal error. This means that some fatal, unrecoverable error
occurred.
If a subprocess that had been invoked by tar exited with a
nonzero exit code, tar itself exits with that code as well. This can
happen, for example, if a compression option (e.g. -z) was used and
the external compressor program failed. Another example is rmt
failure during backup to a remote device.
bzip2(1), compress(1), gzip(1), lzma(1),
lzop(1), rmt(8), symlink(7), xz(1),
zstd(1).
Complete tar manual: run info tar or use
emacs(1) info mode to read it.
Online copies of GNU tar documentation in various formats
can be found at:
http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual
Report bugs to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
Copyright © 2013-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO
WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
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