tar

An archiving utility. tar stands for tape archive.

Syntax: tar [options] [archive] [file]

Example:

1. Using the -cvf option to archive a file. The -c option is used to create the archive, -v displays a verbose message about the process and -f is used when the user wants to specify the name of the archive file.

   $ tar -cvf java.tar java-programming/
   java-programming/
   java-programming/BalancedParanthesis/
   java-programming/BalancedParanthesis/BalancedParanthesis.java
   java-programming/FindTheWinner/
   java-programming/FindTheWinner/FindTheWinner.java
   java-programming/GarbageCollection/
   java-programming/GarbageCollection/GarbageCollection.java
   java-programming/HomegrownStack/
   java-programming/HomegrownStack/HomegrownStack.java
   java-programming/UniqueID/
   java-programming/UniqueID/UniqueID.java
   

2. Using the -xvf to extract a archive file. The -x option is used to specify that we want to extract the archive.

   $ tar -xvf java.tar
   java-programming/
   java-programming/BalancedParanthesis/
   java-programming/BalancedParanthesis/BalancedParanthesis.java
   java-programming/FindTheWinner/
   java-programming/FindTheWinner/FindTheWinner.java
   java-programming/GarbageCollection/
   java-programming/GarbageCollection/GarbageCollection.java
   java-programming/HomegrownStack/
   java-programming/HomegrownStack/HomegrownStack.java
   java-programming/UniqueID/
   java-programming/UniqueID/UniqueID.java
   

3. Compressing an archive into .gz format using -z command.

   $ tar -czf java.tar.gz java-programming/
   
   $ ls
   java.tar.gz
   

gzip & gunzip

Used for compressing a file. You can use gzip for both compression and decompression and use gunzip for decompression.

Syntax for gzip: gzip [option] filename

Syntax for gunzip: gunzip [option] filename

Example:

1. Compressing using gzip

   $ ls
   file.txt
   
   $ gzip file.txt
   
   $ ls
   file.txt.gz
   

2. Decompressing using gzip using -d option.

   $ gzip -d file.txt.gz
   
   $ ls
   file.txt
   

3. Decompressing using gunzip

   $ gunzip file.txt
   
   $ ls
   file.txt