cli-tarHow do I use tar to compress only directories in a Unix system?

tar is a Unix utility used to create and manipulate tar archives. To compress only directories using tar, use the -z flag for gzip compression and the -C flag to specify the directory containing the files to be archived. For example:

tar -zcvf archive.tar.gz -C /path/to/directory .

This command will create an archive named archive.tar.gz containing all the files and directories in /path/to/directory.

The parts of the command are as follows:

• tar: the command to create and manipulate tar archives
• -z: flag to enable gzip compression
• -c: flag to create an archive
• -v: flag to enable verbose output
• -f: flag to specify the output file name
• -C: flag to specify the directory containing the files to be archived
• archive.tar.gz: the name of the output file
• /path/to/directory: the directory containing the files to be archived
• .: the current directory

Helpful links

• tar man page
• GNU tar documentation

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