cli-tarHow do I use tar commands with xz?

The tar command can be used with the xz command to compress files and directories. The xz command is used to compress a file or directory into a .xz file. The tar command can then be used to create an archive containing the .xz file.

The syntax for this command is as follows:

tar -cvJf <archive_name>.tar.xz <file_or_directory>

The -c flag tells the tar command to create an archive, the -v flag tells the tar command to be verbose and display the progress of the archive creation, the -J flag tells the tar command to use the xz command to compress the archive, and the -f flag tells the tar command to use the specified file name for the archive.

The following example creates an archive named my_archive.tar.xz containing the file my_file.txt:

tar -cvJf my_archive.tar.xz my_file.txt

The output of this command should be something like this:

my_file.txt

Code explanation

• -c: tells the tar command to create an archive
• -v: tells the tar command to be verbose and display the progress of the archive creation
• -J: tells the tar command to use the xz command to compress the archive
• -f: tells the tar command to use the specified file name for the archive

Helpful links

• GNU Tar Manual
• XZ Utils Manual

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