Macos – tar: –exclude=“.git”: Cannot stat: No such file or directory

macostar

This is driving me crazy. I want to tar a directory, but exclude some files. This is my command:

tar -zcvf $NAME-$VERSION.tar.gz $NAME-$VERSION --exclude='.git' --exclude='.gitignore'

While the above command works on RedHat EL5, it doesn't work on Mac OS 10.8.2. I have tried replacing the ' with ", \' and \". I have tried removing the equal signs. Nothing works.

What am I doing wrong?

Best Answer

All the options need to be together before the arguments, and the -f flag needs to precede the tar file:

tar -zcv --exclude='.git' --exclude='.gitignore' -f $NAME-$VERSION.tar.gz $NAME-$VERSION
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