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

Using the tar command in Unix, you can exclude a directory from being archived. This is done by using the --exclude option, followed by the directory name you want to exclude.

For example, to exclude a directory named foo from being archived, you would use the following command:

tar --exclude=foo -cvf archive.tar .

This command would create an archive named archive.tar containing all files and directories in the current working directory, except for the foo directory.

The parts of the command are:

• tar - The tar command
• --exclude=foo - The --exclude option, followed by the directory name to exclude
• -cvf - The flags used to create the archive, -c for create, -v for verbose, and -f to specify the archive filename
• archive.tar - The name of the archive
• . - The directory to archive

For more information on the tar command, see the man page.

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