cli-tarHow do I use the CLI tar command?

The tar command (short for Tape Archive) is a powerful command line utility used to create and manipulate archives. It is commonly used to compress large files and directories for storage or for transmission over a network.

To use the tar command, the syntax is tar <options> <archive_name.tar> <files_to_archive>.

For example, to create an archive of the directory my_files and save it to my_files.tar, the command would be:

tar -cf my_files.tar my_files

The options used in this command are:

• -c: create an archive
• -f: use the filename specified

To extract the contents of the archive, the syntax is tar -xvf <archive_name.tar>. The options used in this command are:

• -x: extract an archive
• -v: verbosely list files processed
• -f: use the filename specified

For example, to extract the contents of my_files.tar, the command would be:

tar -xvf my_files.tar

For more information on the tar command, see the GNU tar manual.

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