When using tar I always include -f in the parameters but I have no idea why.
I looked up the man and it said;
-f, --file [HOSTNAME:]F use archive file or device F (default "-", meaning stdin/stdout)
But to be honest I have no idea what that means. Can anyone shed any light on it?
Answers:
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Method 1
The -f option tells tar that the next argument is the file name of the archive, or standard output if it is -.
Method 2
Quite simple. If you omit the -f parameter, output is passed to stdout:
<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="8fe8eee2e2f6cfebeae1e6ecea">[email protected]</a>:/tmp/demo$ tar -c a b c a0000644000175000017500000000000011435437117010223 0ustar gammygammyb0000644000175000017500000000000011435437117010224 0ustar gammygammyc0000644000175000017500000000000011435437117010225 0ustar <a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="99fef8f4f4e0fef8f4f4e0fef8f4f4e0d9fdfcf7f0fafc">[email protected]</a>:/tmp/demo$ ls a b c <a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="b1d6d0dcdcc8f1d5d4dfd8d2d4">[email protected]</a>:/tmp/demo$
…what a mess!
The -f-parameter (as you quoted) expects a filename (and optionally a hostname), hence the first argument after it is the output filename:
<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="0e696f6363774e6a6b60676d6b">[email protected]</a>:/tmp/demo$ tar -cf output.tar a b c <a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="c2a5a3afafbb82a6a7acaba1a7">[email protected]</a>:/tmp/demo$ ls a b c output.tar <a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="f99e98949480b99d9c97909a9c">[email protected]</a>:/tmp/demo$
Method 3
It lets you specify the file or device you’re going to be working with. Either creating, updating or extracting things from it depending on other supplied flags.
For example:
# Create a tar file with the contents of somepath/ tar -cvf filename.tar somepath/ # Extract the tar file. tar -xvf filename.tar
All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0