Unzipping .tar files

[raab]

How do you do this? I tried using "tar -(flag the man page says to use to extract) file.tar" but it just hangs til I press ctrl+c. I tried using some GUI program that came with KDE but it crashes.

[Dave's not here]

to untar a file you use:
tar -xvf filename.tar
x is for extract
v is for verbose
f is for filename

Without the f, it doesn't know what file to use and will hang.

[VRay]

I use tar -zxvf filename.tar
What does the z mean?

[frank754]

not sure what the z means, but this seems
the common usage nowadays. You can also
drop the - sign, as I think this was a
holdover from the old unix and Linux won't
care about the - or not. Am I right?

[Linuxcool]

The ' z ' means to unzip the file. Yes, you can leave off the ' - '.

[ 12 August 2001: Message edited by: Linuxcool ]

[bdg1983]

Unzip if the file is a tar.gz.

Just makes it easier to use one command instead of

gzip -d filename.tar.gz
or
gunzip filename.tar.gz

and then from the resulting filename.tar

tar -xvf filename.tar

Just use

tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz

[bdg1983]

Of course the manual pages will tell you this.

man gunzip

man gzip

man tar