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Many files and entire directory trees can be archived into a single file for backup, long-term storage or for distributing groups of files by e-mail or over the worldwide web. Archive files are often compressed.
6.6.2.1. File names ending with .tar, .tgz, and .taz: tar
Tape archive files, tar files, are the most common method of distributing files in the Unix world. They are commonly used to backup files and directory trees.
To extract files from an uncompressed archive (.tar file), use
tar -xf tarfile. File names will be listed as files
are extracted if you use the -v flag.
To list the contents of a tar file without extracting files, use
tar -tf tarfile.
Files can be extracted from compressed archives (.tgz, .tar.gz,
and .taz files) by two methods. You can uncompress the archive
(see Compressed files), and then untar the archive,
or you can pipe uncompressed file contents directly to tar. For example,
gunzip -c mucho.tar.gz | tar -xf - uncompresses
mucho.tar.gz and pipes the contents to tar
for extraction.
6.6.2.2. File names ending with .cpio: cpio
To extract files from a cpio archive, pass the archive to
cpio as its standard input. For example,
To list the contents of cpio archives use the -i and
-t flags.
A natural way to process compressed cpio files is to
uncompress them, piping the results to cpio. Example:
cpio -id < cpiofile. The -i flag indicates
that cpio is reading in the archive to extract files, and the
-d flag tells cpio to construct directories
as necessary. You can also use the -v flag to have file names
listed as files are extracted.
uncompress -c mucho.cpio.Z | cpio -ivd.
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