Linux – Packaging with tar

linuxtar

I am trying to package the files:

file1
folder2/hello
folder2/world
file3

into a tar file so they are encapsulated in a custom defined folder, so the tar -tvf archive.tar appears as:

mycustomfolder/file1
mycustomfolder/folder2/hello
mycustomfolder/folder2/world
mycustomfolder/file3

Currently to come around this I am:

Creating an archive(x) of file1, folder2 and file3.
Creating a mycustomfolder folder.
Extract the archive(x) into mycustomfolder
Create an archive(y) from mycustomfolder

I can't help it think their might be one step of doing this or a better way?

Best Answer

If you want the archive to extract into its own directory -- which is generally better, since ones that don't can make a mess -- just create the directory, then move/copy the content tree into it, so you have, as in your second example:

mycustomfolder/file1
mycustomfolder/folder2/hello
mycustomfolder/folder2/world
mycustomfolder/file3

Then tar -cvf myarchive.tar mycustomfolder. To extract, tar -xvf myarchive.tar.

If you don't want to create the directory first, you can transform the files names and append a directory prefix:

tar --xform="s%^%mycustomfolder/%" -cvf myarchive.tar file1 folder2 file3

The transformation (see man tar) uses sed syntax; I used % instead of / for the divider because s/^/mycustomerfolder\// creates a folder named mycustomfolder\ (== odd behavior IMO), but s/^/mycustomfolder// is (properly) an "Invalid transform expression".

Related Solutions

tar with Relative Paths – How to Use

~ is expanded by the shell. Don't use ~ with -C:

tar czf ~/files/wp/my-page-order.tar.gz \
      -C ~ \
       webapps/zers/wp-content/plugins/my-page-order

(tar will include webapps/zers/wp-content/plugins/my-page-order path) or

tar czf ~/files/wp/my-page-order.tar.gz \
      -C ~/webapps/zers/wp-content/plugins \
       my-page-order

(tar will include my-page-order path)

Or just cd first....

cd ~/webapps/zers/wp-content/plugins
tar czf ~/files/wp/my-page-order.tar.gz my-page-order

Linux Backup – How to Compress a Folder with Tar

To tar and gzip a folder, the syntax is:

tar czf name_of_archive_file.tar.gz name_of_directory_to_tar

The - with czf is optional.

If you want to tar the current directory, use . to designate that.

To construct filenames dynamically, use the date utility (look at its man page for the available format options). For example:

cd /var/www &&
tar czf ~/www_backups/$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).tar.gz .

This will create a file named something like 20120902-185558.tar.gz.

On Linux, chances are your tar also supports BZip2 compression with the j rather than z option. And possibly others. Check the man page on your local system.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

tar with Relative Paths – How to Use

Linux Backup – How to Compress a Folder with Tar

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