Untar and overwrite files

Assuming the tar archive at your hand contains a directory or more, you can manually tell tar which directory to extract.

Extracting tar archives is quite a simple task. All you need to know is the right tar command. In Linux, there are more tools to extract various formats of compressed archives. Check out how to extract compressed archives in Linux. Student of CSE. I love Linux and playing with tech and gadgets.

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We are thankful for your never ending support. The order of the arguments has to be changed. The single files or directories to be extracted need to be last:. Your blog is very good, your blog has great information, your content is also very good, your blog has got a lot of help. I would like you to know that we are pleased to have read your beautiful and kind note of appreciation and encouragement. Thanks a lot.

Have you created the separate directory before extracting the specific files to that directory? The -C option is used to specify a different directory and it must exists before extracting files. Else, you can also extract files withing the current directory without creating a new directory like:.

I have the same issue as Ren, and in my case I have created the destination dir… no matter how I specify things the extracted file always ends up in the current directory. Oh… if I change the order it works. Great post. It would be helpful for Linux beginners to explain the switches used. What does -xf do? You explain the addition of the -v switch which is good. In Example 2, you throw in the -z switch and in Example 3, the -j switch without any explanation.

Again, a good example for using different options, but it could use a bit of explanation. In the documentation , I read that tar has the following options when extracting files from a tarball: -k, --keep-old-files don't replace existing files when extracting --overwrite overwrite existing files when extracting which one is used by default?

Improve this question. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. So --overwrite is default. Improve this answer. And an explanation of the behavior: gnu. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Email Required, but never shown. The Overflow Blog.