---
layout: page
category_title: interm
category-page: interm
tags: tar shell command compress archive
author: Nicola Brunner
title: tar
---

<p>The <code>tar</code> command is used to create and manipulate streaming archive files, in
  other words it is used to compress and extract files and directories. He can
  extract from many file formats like: tar, pax, cpio, zio, jar, ar and ISO 9660
  cdrom images and create tar, pax, cpio, ar, and shar archives.</p>
<br>

<h3>Usage:</h3>

<p>There are different syntaxes for this command:</p>
<pre>tar {-c} [options] [files | directories]</pre>
<p>The first one is the default syntax. Where <code>{-c}</code> stays for the
  creation of a new archive, <code>[options]<code> for the different flags that
    we can use, <code>[files | directories]</code> for the files or directories
    that we want to compress.<p>
<pre>tar {-r | -u} -f archive-file [options] [files | directories]<br>
tar {-t | -x} [options] [patterns]<br>
tar [bundled-flags <args>] [<file> | <pattern> ...]</pre>
<p>The last one shows a “bundled” option word provided for compatibility with
  historical implementations.</p>
<br>

<h3>Flags:</h3>

<p>This command has a large number of options, but you just need to remember a
  few letters for the most important ones:</p>

<ul>
  <li><code>-c</code> creates a new archive, that contains the specified items.</li>
  <li><code>-r</code> is like <code>-c</code> but appends the new entries to the
     archive, requires the <code>-f</code> option.</li>
  <li><code>-u</code> is like <code>-r</code> but adds the new entries only if
    the date is newer than the corresponding entry date of the file/directory to
    the archive, requires the <code>-f</code> option.</li>
  <li><code>-t</code> lists the archive contents to the terminal output.</li>
  <li><code>-v</code> is used to display the progress of an archive creation in
    the terminal.</li>
  <li><code>-f</code> allows to specify the name of an archive.</li>
  <li><code>-x</code> is used to extract files from an archive to the disk.</li>
  <li><code>--exclude</code> does not compress specified files or directories.</li>
  <li><code>--include</code> compresses specified file or directories. It's
    important to know that <code>--exclude</code> take precedence over inclusions.
    The <code>--include</code> option is useful when you want to filter archives</li>
</ul>

<p>If you don’t find here an option that you search, or you are interested to read
more about this command, you can write in your terminal:<p>
<pre>tar man</pre>
<br>

<h3>Example:</h3>
<pre>tar -cvf archive.zip makesmaller.jpg</pre>
<p>In this case, we take the file <code>makesmaller.jpg</code> and compress it
  to <code>archive.zip</code>. We use the options <code>-cvf</code>, <code>-c </code>
  for creating a new archive, <code>-v</code> for displaying the progress of the
  operation and <code>-f</code> for specifying the name of the archive.

<pre>tar -cvf archive.zip makesmaller.jpg alsome.txt</pre>
<p>It’s the same case as before, but we wanted to add also <code>alsome.txt</code>
  to <code>archive.zip</code>.