Tar bundles multiple files into a single archive file, and can optionally compress them in Linux systems.

Compress

To compress a file or directory

tar -cvf archive_file_name.tar <location-to-the-directory-or-file>

the options used in the above command are

• -c for creating a new archive
• -v to show the detailed output of the process.
• -f to specify the archive file.

to compress the archive using gzip use the option -z so the archive will be a .tar.gz file

tar -cvfz compressed_archive_file_name.tar.gz <location-to-the-directory-or-file>

some other gzip (-z) alternative to compress the archive are *bzip2 (-j) and xz (-J)

Extract

To compress a file or directory

tar -C <location-to-the-directory-where-to-uncompress> -xvf archive_file_name.tar

the options used in the above command are

• x Extract files from an archive.
• -v to show the detailed output of the process.
• -f to specify the archive file.

List the contents

To see the files in an archive

tar -tvf compressed_file_name.tar

For a compressed archive provide the valid -z or -j or -J option