cli-tarHow do I use tar to compress a directory in Unix?

To use tar to compress a directory in Unix, you can use the following command:

tar -zcvf <filename>.tar.gz <directory>

This will create a tarball file called <filename>.tar.gz containing the contents of the directory <directory>. The flags -zcvf indicate that the tarball should be compressed using gzip, created (-c), verbosely listed (-v), and the output file should be <filename>.tar.gz (-f).

Code explanation

• tar: the command to create a tar archive
• -zcvf: flags indicating that the tarball should be compressed using gzip, created, verbosely listed, and the output file should be <filename>.tar.gz
• <filename>.tar.gz: the output file name
• <directory>: the directory to be compressed

Helpful links

• GNU Tar Manual
• Linuxize - How to Create Tar Gz Archive

Edit this code on GitHub