Tape Archive

tar

Packs and compresses multiple files into a tarball or writes to magnetic tape.

Use (BSD-Style)

tar xf example.tar extract (x) tarball example.tar (f) to .
tar cf example.tar create (c) tarball example.tar (f) to .

Useful Flags

t list contents to stdout
v verbose output
z de-/compress with gzip
j de-/compress with bzip
p preserve file permissions, default as root
r append files to the end of an existing uncompressed tarball
u append files to the end of an existing uncompressed tarball, if files are newer
C extract to a target directory