cli-tarHow do I use the Unix tar command?

The Unix tar command is used to create and extract archives. It stands for Tape ARchive and is commonly used to compress multiple files into a single file or to extract files from an archive.

Here is an example of how to use the tar command to create an archive:

tar -cvf archive.tar file1 file2 file3

This command will create an archive named archive.tar with the files file1, file2, and file3. The flags used in the command are:

• -c: Create an archive.
• -v: Verbosely list files which are processed.
• -f: Use archive file or device ARCHIVE.

To extract files from an archive, the -x flag is used instead of -c like this:

tar -xvf archive.tar

This command will extract the files from the archive.tar archive.

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

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