Tar Command Examples in Linux - Part(2)

11. Untar Single file from tar.gz File

To extract a single file manishbackup.xml from manishbackup.tar.gz archive file, use the command as follows.

# tar -zxvf manishbackup.tar.gz manishbackup.xml

OR

# tar --extract --file=manishbackup.tar.gz manishbackup.xml

manishbackup.xml

12. Untar Single file from tar.bz2 File

To extract a single file called index.php from the file Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2 use the following option.

# tar -jxvf Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2 home/php/index.php

OR

# tar --extract --file=Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2 /home/php/index.php

/home/php/index.php

13. Untar Multiple files from tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2 File

To extract or untar multiple files from the tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2 archive file. For example the below command will extract “file 1” “file 2” from the archive files.

# tar -xvf manish-14-09-12.tar "file 1" "file 2" 

# tar -zxvf MyImages-14-09-12.tar.gz "file 1" "file 2" 

# tar -jxvf Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2 "file 1" "file 2"

14. Extract Group of Files using Wildcard

To extract a group of files we use wildcard based extracting. For example, to extract a group of all files whose pattern begins with .php from a tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2 archive file.

# tar -xvf Phpfiles-org.tar --wildcards '*.php'

# tar -zxvf Phpfiles-org.tar.gz --wildcards '*.php'

# tar -jxvf Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2 --wildcards '*.php'

/home/php/iframe_ew.php

/home/php/videos_all.php

/home/php/rss.php

/home/php/index.php

/home/php/vendor.php

/home/php/video_title.php

/home/php/report.php

/home/php/video.php

15. Add Files or Directories to tar Archive File

To add files or directories to existing tar archived file we use the option r (append). For example we add file xyz.txt and directory php to existing manish-14-09-12.tar archive file.

# tar -rvf manish-14-09-12.tar xyz.txt

# tar -rvf manish-14-09-12.tar php

drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2012-09-15 02:24:21 home/manish/

-rw-r--r-- root/root  15740615 2012-09-15 02:23:42 home/manish/cleanfiles.sh

-rw-r--r-- root/root    863726 2012-09-15 02:23:41 home/manish/openvpn-2.1.4.tar.gz

-rw-r--r-- root/root  21063680 2012-09-15 02:24:21 home/manish/manish-14-09-12.tar

-rw-r--r-- root/root   4437600 2012-09-15 02:23:41 home/manish/phpmyadmin-2.11.11.3-1.el5.rf.noarch.rpm

-rw-r--r-- root/root     12680 2012-09-15 02:23:41 home/manish/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el5.rf.i386.rpm

-rw-r--r-- root/root 0 2012-08-18 19:11:04 xyz.txt

drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2012-09-15 03:06:08 php/ 

-rw-r--r-- root/root 1751 2012-09-15 03:06:08 php/iframe_ew.php 

-rw-r--r-- root/root 11220 2012-09-15 03:06:08 php/videos_all.php 

-rw-r--r-- root/root 2152 2012-09-15 03:06:08 php/rss.php 

-rw-r--r-- root/root 3021 2012-09-15 03:06:08 php/index.php 

-rw-r--r-- root/root 2554 2012-09-15 03:06:08 php/vendor.php 

-rw-r--r-- root/root 406 2012-09-15 03:06:08 php/video_title.php

16. Add Files or Directories to tar.gz and tar.bz2 files

The tar command don’t have a option to add files or directories to an existing compressed tar.gz and tar.bz2archive file. If we do try will get the following error.

# tar -rvf MyImages-14-09-12.tar.gz xyz.txt

# tar -rvf Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2 xyz.txt

tar: This does not look like a tar archive

tar: Skipping to next header

xyz.txt

tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

17. How To Verify tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2 Archive File

To verfify any tar or compressed archived file we use option as W (verify). To do, just use the following examples of command. (Note : You cannot do verification on a compressed ( *.tar.gz, *.tar.bz2 ) archive file).

# tar tvfW manish-14-09-12.tar

tar: This does not look like a tar archive

tar: Skipping to next header

tar: Archive contains obsolescent base-64 headers

tar: VERIFY FAILURE: 30740 invalid headers detected

Verify -rw-r--r-- root/root    863726 2012-09-15 02:23:41 /home/manish/openvpn-2.1.4.tar.gz

Verify -rw-r--r-- root/root  21063680 2012-09-15 02:24:21 /home/manish/manish-14-09-12.tar

tar: /home/manish/manish-14-09-12.tar: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory

Verify -rw-r--r-- root/root   4437600 2012-09-15 02:23:41 home/manish/phpmyadmin-2.11.11.3-1.el5.rf.noarch.rpm

tar: /home/manish/phpmyadmin-2.11.11.3-1.el5.rf.noarch.rpm: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory

Verify -rw-r--r-- root/root     12680 2012-09-15 02:23:41 home/manish/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el5.rf.i386.rpm

tar: /home/manish/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el5.rf.i386.rpm: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory

Verify -rw-r--r-- root/root         0 2012-08-18 19:11:04 xyz.txt

Verify drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2012-09-15 03:06:08 php/

18. Check the Size of the tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2 Archive File

To check the size of any tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2 archive file, use the following command. For example the below command will display the size of archive file in Kilobytes (KB).

# tar -czf - manish-14-09-12.tar | wc -c

12820480

# tar -czf - MyImages-14-09-12.tar.gz | wc -c

112640

# tar -czf - Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2 | wc -c

20480

Tar Usage and Options

1.     c – create a archive file.

2.     x – extract a archive file.

3.     v – show the progress of archive file.

4.     f – filename of archive file.

5.     t – viewing content of archive file.

6.     j – filter archive through bzip2.

7.     z – filter archive through gzip.

8.     r – append or update files or directories to existing archive file.

9.     W – Verify a archive file.

10. wildcards – Specify patterns in unix tar command.

That’s it for now, hope the above tar command examples are enough for you to learn and for more information please use man tar command.