You do not need to change the directory using cd command and extract files. Untarring a file can be done using the following syntax:
Syntax
Typical Unix tar syntax:
tar -xf file.name.tar -C /path/to/directory
GNU/tar syntax:
tar xf file.tar -C /path/to/directory
tar xf file.tar --directory /path/to/directory
Example: Extract files to another directory
In this example, I’m extracting $HOME/etc.backup.tar file to a directory called /tmp/data. First, you have to create the directory manually, enter:
mkdir /tmp/data |
To extract a tar archive $HOME/etc.backup.tar into a /tmp/data, enter:
tar -xf $HOME/etc.backup.tar -C /tmp/data |
To see a progress pass the -v option:
tar -xvf $HOME/etc.backup.tar -C /tmp/data |
Sample outputs:
You can extract specific files too use:
tar -xvf $HOME/etc.backup.tar file1 file2 file3 dir1 -C /tmp/data |
To extract a foo.tar.gz (.tgz extension file) tarball to /tmp/bar, enter:
mkdir /tmp/bar tar -zxvf foo.tar.gz -C /tmp/bar |
To extract a foo.tar.bz2 (.tbz, .tbz2 & .tb2 extension file) tarball to /tmp/bar, enter:
mkdir /tmp/bar tar -jxvf foo.tar.bz2 -C /tmp/bar |
See tar(1) for more information.
6 comment
Just a side-note ;) http://xkcd.com/1168/
Lmao!
Excellent very neat and clear…………….
on the specific files example. it didn’t work on my environment unless i moved the -C flag before the explicit file names
e.g.
tar -xvf $HOME/etc.backup.tar -C /tmp/data file1 file2 file3 dir1
I’m very curious to know if there is a directory that is common place to install tar in, or no one follows a directory structure?
New software usually goes in /usr/local/. Your personal data stays in your own $HOME.