TAR(1) GNU TAR Manual TAR(1)

NAME top

tar - an archiving utility

SYNOPSIS top

Traditional usage
tar {A|c|d|r|t|u|x}[GnSkUWOmpsMBiajJzZhPlRvwo] [ARG...]

UNIX-style usage
tar -A [OPTIONS] ARCHIVE ARCHIVE

tar -c [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]

tar -d [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]

tar -t [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]

tar -r [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]

tar -u [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]

tar -x [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]

GNU-style usage
tar {--catenate|--concatenate} [OPTIONS] ARCHIVE ARCHIVE

tar --create [--file ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]

tar {--diff|--compare} [--file ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]

tar --delete [--file ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]

tar --append [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]

tar --list [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]

tar --test-label [--file ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [LABEL...]

tar --update [--file ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]

tar --update [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]

tar {--extract|--get} [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]

NOTE top

This manpage is a short description of GNU tar. For a detailed

discussion, including examples and usage recommendations, refer to
the GNU Tar Manual available in texinfo format. If the info reader
and the tar documentation are properly installed on your system, the
command

info tar

should give you access to the complete manual.

You can also view the manual using the info mode in emacs(1), or find
it in various formats online at

http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual
 If any discrepancies occur between this manpage and the GNU Tar
Manual, the later shall be considered the authoritative source.

DESCRIPTION top

GNU tar is an archiving program designed to store multiple files in a

single file (an archive), and to manipulate such archives. The
archive can be either a regular file or a device (e.g. a tape drive,
hence the name of the program, which stands for tape archiver), which
can be located either on the local or on a remote machine.

Option styles
Options to GNU tar can be given in three different styles. In
traditional style, the first argument is a cluster of option letters
and all subsequent arguments supply arguments to those options that
require them. The arguments are read in the same order as the option
letters. Any command line words that remain after all options has
been processed are treated as non-optional arguments: file or archive
member names.

For example, the c option requires creating the archive, the v option
requests the verbose operation, and the f option takes an argument
that sets the name of the archive to operate upon. The following
command, written in the traditional style, instructs tar to store all
files from the directory /etc into the archive file etc.tar verbosely
listing the files being archived:

tar cfv etc.tar /etc

In UNIX or short-option style, each option letter is prefixed with a

single dash, as in other command line utilities. If an option takes
argument, the argument follows it, either as a separate command line
word, or immediately following the option. However, if the option
takes an optional argument, the argument must follow the option let‐
ter without any intervening whitespace, as in -g/tmp/snar.db.

Any number of options not taking arguments can be clustered together

after a single dash, e.g. -vkp. Options that take arguments (whether
mandatory or optional), can appear at the end of such a cluster, e.g.
-vkpf a.tar.

The example command above written in the short-option style could

look like:

tar -cvf etc.tar /etc

or
tar -c -v -f etc.tar /etc

In GNU or long-option style, each option begins with two dashes and
has a meaningful name, consisting of lower-case letters and dashes.
When used, the long option can be abbreviated to its initial letters,
provided that this does not create ambiguity. Arguments to long
options are supplied either as a separate command line word, immedi‐
ately following the option, or separated from the option by an equals
sign with no intervening whitespace. Optional arguments must always
use the latter method.

Here are several ways of writing the example command in this style:

tar --create --file etc.tar --verbose /etc

or (abbreviating some options):
tar --cre --file=etc.tar --verb /etc

The options in all three styles can be intermixed, although doing so

with old options is not encouraged.

Operation mode
The options listed in the table below tell GNU tar what operation it
is to perform. Exactly one of them must be given. Meaning of non-
optional arguments depends on the operation mode requested.

-A, --catenate, --concatenate

Append archive to the end of another archive. The arguments
are treated as the names of archives to append. All archives
must be of the same format as the archive they are appended
to, otherwise the resulting archive might be unusable with
non-GNU implementations of tar. Notice also that when more
than one archive is given, the members from archives other
than the first one will be accessible in the resulting archive
only if using the -i (--ignore-zeros) option.

Compressed archives cannot be concatenated.

-c, --create
Create a new archive. Arguments supply the names of the files
to be archived. Directories are archived recursively, unless
the --no-recursion option is given.

-d, --diff, --compare

Find differences between archive and file system. The argu‐
ments are optional and specify archive members to compare. If
not given, the current working directory is assumed.

--delete
Delete from the archive. The arguments supply names of the
archive members to be removed. At least one argument must be
given.

This option does not operate on compressed archives. There is

no short option equivalent.

-r, --append
Append files to the end of an archive. Arguments have the
same meaning as for -c (--create).

-t, --list
List the contents of an archive. Arguments are optional.
When given, they specify the names of the members to list.

--test-label
Test the archive volume label and exit. When used without
arguments, it prints the volume label (if any) and exits with
status 0. When one or more command line arguments are given.
tar compares the volume label with each argument. It exits
with code 0 if a match is found, and with code 1 otherwise.
No output is displayed, unless used together with the -v
(--verbose) option.

There is no short option equivalent for this option.

-u, --update
Append files which are newer than the corresponding copy in
the archive. Arguments have the same meaning as with -c and
-r options. Notice, that newer files don't replace their old
archive copies, but instead are appended to the end of ar‐
chive. The resulting archive can thus contain several members
of the same name, corresponding to various versions of the
same file.

-x, --extract, --get

Extract files from an archive. Arguments are optional. When
given, they specify names of the archive members to be
extracted.

--show-defaults
 Show built-in defaults for various tar options and exit. No
arguments are allowed.

-?, --help
Display a short option summary and exit. No arguments
allowed.

--usage
Display a list of available options and exit. No arguments
allowed.

--version
Print program version and copyright information and exit.

OPTIONS top

Operation modifiers
--check-device
Check device numbers when creating incremental archives
(default).

-g, --listed-incremental=FILE
Handle new GNU-format incremental backups. FILE is the name
of a snapshot file, where tar stores additional information
which is used to decide which files changed since the previous
incremental dump and, consequently, must be dumped again. If
FILE does not exist when creating an archive, it will be
created and all files will be added to the resulting archive
(the level 0 dump). To create incremental archives of non-
zero level N, create a copy of the snapshot file created
during the level N-1, and use it as FILE.

When listing or extracting, the actual contents of FILE is not

inspected, it is needed only due to syntactical requirements.
It is therefore common practice to use /dev/null in its place.

--hole-detection=METHOD
Use METHOD to detect holes in sparse files. This option
implies --sparse. Valid values for METHOD are seek and raw.
Default is seek with fallback to raw when not applicable.

-G, --incremental
Handle old GNU-format incremental backups.

--ignore-failed-read
Do not exit with nonzero on unreadable files.

--level=NUMBER
Set dump level for created listed-incremental archive.
Currently only --level=0 is meaningful: it instructs tar to
truncate the snapshot file before dumping, thereby forcing a
level 0 dump.

-n, --seek
Assume the archive is seekable. Normally tar determines
automatically whether the archive can be seeked or not. This
option is intended for use in cases when such recognition
fails. It takes effect only if the archive is open for
reading (e.g. with --list or --extract options).

--no-check-device
Do not check device numbers when creating incremental
archives.

--no-seek
Assume the archive is not seekable.
 --occurrence[=N]
Process only the Nth occurrence of each file in the archive.
This option is valid only when used with one of the following
subcommands: --delete, --diff, --extract or --list and when a
list of files is given either on the command line or via the
-T option. The default N is 1.

--restrict
Disable the use of some potentially harmful options.

--sparse-version=MAJOR[.MINOR]
Set version of the sparse format to use (implies --sparse).
This option implies --sparse. Valid argument values are 0.0,
0.1, and 1.0. For a detailed discussion of sparse formats,
refer to the GNU Tar Manual, appendix D, "Sparse Formats".
Using info reader, it can be accessed running the following
command: info tar 'Sparse Formats'.

-S, --sparse
Handle sparse files efficiently. Some files in the file
system may have segments which were actually never written
(quite often these are database files created by such systems
as DBM). When given this option, tar attempts to determine if
the file is sparse prior to archiving it, and if so, to reduce
the resulting archive size by not dumping empty parts of the
file.

Overwrite control
These options control tar actions when extracting a file over an
existing copy on disk.

-k, --keep-old-files
Don't replace existing files when extracting.

--keep-newer-files
Don't replace existing files that are newer than their archive
copies.

--keep-directory-symlink
Don't replace existing symlinks to directories when
extracting.

--no-overwrite-dir
Preserve metadata of existing directories.

--one-top-level[=DIR]
Extract all files into DIR, or, if used without argument, into
a subdirectory named by the base name of the archive (minus
standard compression suffixes recognizable by
--auto-compress).

--overwrite
Overwrite existing files when extracting.

--overwrite-dir
Overwrite metadata of existing directories when extracting
(default).

--recursive-unlink
Recursively remove all files in the directory prior to
extracting it.

--remove-files
Remove files from disk after adding them to the archive.

--skip-old-files
Don't replace existing files when extracting, silently skip
over them.
 -U, --unlink-first
Remove each file prior to extracting over it.

-W, --verify
Verify the archive after writing it.

Output stream selection

--ignore-command-error

Ignore subprocess exit codes.

--no-ignore-command-error
Treat non-zero exit codes of children as error (default).

-O, --to-stdout
Extract files to standard output.

--to-command=COMMAND
Pipe extracted files to COMMAND. The argument is the pathname
of an external program, optionally with command line
arguments. The program will be invoked and the contents of
the file being extracted supplied to it on its standard input.
Additional data will be supplied via the following environment
variables:

TAR_FILETYPE
Type of the file. It is a single letter with the
following meaning:

f Regular file
d Directory
l Symbolic link
h Hard link
b Block device
c Character device

Currently only regular files are supported.

TAR_MODE
File mode, an octal number.

TAR_FILENAME
The name of the file.

TAR_REALNAME
Name of the file as stored in the archive.

TAR_UNAME
Name of the file owner.

TAR_GNAME
Name of the file owner group.

TAR_ATIME
Time of last access. It is a decimal number,
representing seconds since the Epoch. If the archive
provides times with nanosecond precision, the
nanoseconds are appended to the timestamp after a
decimal point.

TAR_MTIME
Time of last modification.

TAR_CTIME
Time of last status change.

TAR_SIZE
 Size of the file.

TAR_UID
UID of the file owner.

TAR_GID
GID of the file owner.

Additionally, the following variables contain information

about tar operation mode and the archive being processed:

TAR_VERSION
GNU tar version number.

TAR_ARCHIVE
The name of the archive tar is processing.

TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR
Current blocking factor, i.e. number of 512-byte blocks
in a record.

TAR_VOLUME
Ordinal number of the volume tar is processing (set if
reading a multi-volume archive).

TAR_FORMAT
Format of the archive being processed. One of: gnu,
oldgnu, posix, ustar, v7.

TAR_SUBCOMMAND
A short option (with a leading dash) describing the
operation tar is executing.

Handling of file attributes

--atime-preserve[=METHOD]
Preserve access times on dumped files, either by restoring the
times after reading (METHOD=replace, this is the default) or
by not setting the times in the first place (METHOD=system)

--delay-directory-restore
Delay setting modification times and permissions of extracted
directories until the end of extraction. Use this option when
extracting from an archive which has unusual member ordering.

--group=NAME[:GID]
Force NAME as group for added files. If GID is not supplied,
NAME can be either a user name or numeric GID. In this case
the missing part (GID or name) will be inferred from the
current host's group database.

When used with --group-map=FILE, affects only those files

whose owner group is not listed in FILE.

--group-map=FILE
Read group translation map from FILE. Empty lines are
ignored. Comments are introduced with # sign and extend to
the end of line. Each non-empty line in FILE defines
translation for a single group. It must consist of two
fields, delimited by any amount of whitespace:

OLDGRP NEWGRP[:NEWGID]

OLDGRP is either a valid group name or a GID prefixed with +.

Unless NEWGID is supplied, NEWGRP must also be either a valid
group name or a +GID. Otherwise, both NEWGRP and NEWGID need
not be listed in the system group database.

As a result, each input file with owner group OLDGRP will be

 stored in archive with owner group NEWGRP and GID NEWGID.

--mode=CHANGES
Force symbolic mode CHANGES for added files.

--mtime=DATE-OR-FILE
Set mtime for added files. DATE-OR-FILE is either a date/time
in almost arbitrary format, or the name of an existing file.
In the latter case the mtime of that file will be used.

-m, --touch
Don't extract file modified time.

--no-delay-directory-restore
Cancel the effect of the prior --delay-directory-restore
option.

--no-same-owner
Extract files as yourself (default for ordinary users).

--no-same-permissions
Apply the user's umask when extracting permissions from the
archive (default for ordinary users).

--numeric-owner
Always use numbers for user/group names.

--owner=NAME[:UID]
Force NAME as owner for added files. If UID is not supplied,
NAME can be either a user name or numeric UID. In this case
the missing part (UID or name) will be inferred from the cur‐
rent host's user database.

When used with --owner-map=FILE, affects only those files

whose owner is not listed in FILE.

--owner-map=FILE
Read owner translation map from FILE. Empty lines are
ignored. Comments are introduced with # sign and extend to
the end of line. Each non-empty line in FILE defines transla‐
tion for a single UID. It must consist of two fields, delim‐
ited by any amount of whitespace:

OLDUSR NEWUSR[:NEWUID]

OLDUSR is either a valid user name or a UID prefixed with +.

Unless NEWUID is supplied, NEWUSR must also be either a valid
user name or a +UID. Otherwise, both NEWUSR and NEWUID need
not be listed in the system user database.

As a result, each input file owned by OLDUSR will be stored in

archive with owner name NEWUSR and UID NEWUID.

-p, --preserve-permissions, --same-permissions

extract information about file permissions (default for supe‐
ruser)

--same-owner
Try extracting files with the same ownership as exists in the
archive (default for superuser).

-s, --preserve-order, --same-order

Sort names to extract to match archive

--sort=ORDER
When creating an archive, sort directory entries according to
ORDER, which is one of none, name, or inode.
 The default is --sort=none, which stores archive members in
the same order as returned by the operating system.

Using --sort=name ensures the member ordering in the created

archive is uniform and reproducible.

Using --sort=inode reduces the number of disk seeks made when

creating the archive and thus can considerably speed up archi‐
vation. This sorting order is supported only if the underly‐
ing system provides the necessary information.

Extended file attributes

--acls Enable POSIX ACLs support.

--no-acls
Disable POSIX ACLs support.

--selinux
Enable SELinux context support.

--no-selinux
Disable SELinux context support.

--xattrs
Enable extended attributes support.

--no-xattrs
Disable extended attributes support.

--xattrs-exclude=PATTERN
Specify the exclude pattern for xattr keys. PATTERN is a
POSIX regular expression, e.g. --xattrs-exclude='^user.', to
exclude attributes from the user namespace.

--xattrs-include=PATTERN
Specify the include pattern for xattr keys. PATTERN is a
POSIX regular expression.

Device selection and switching

-f, --file=ARCHIVE
Use archive file or device ARCHIVE. If this option is not
given, tar will first examine the environment variable `TAPE'.
If it is set, its value will be used as the archive name.
Otherwise, tar will assume the compiled-in default. The
default value can be inspected either using the
--show-defaults option, or at the end of the tar --help out‐
put.

An archive name that has a colon in it specifies a file or

device on a remote machine. The part before the colon is
taken as the machine name or IP address, and the part after it
as the file or device pathname, e.g.:

--file=remotehost:/dev/sr0

An optional username can be prefixed to the hostname, placing

a @ sign between them.

By default, the remote host is accessed via the rsh(1) com‐

mand. Nowadays it is common to use ssh(1) instead. You can
do so by giving the following command line option:

--rsh-command=/usr/bin/ssh

The remote machine should have the rmt(8) command installed.

If its pathname does not match tar's default, you can inform
tar about the correct pathname using the --rmt-command option.
 --force-local
Archive file is local even if it has a colon.

-F, --info-script=COMMAND, --new-volume-script=COMMAND

Run COMMAND at the end of each tape (implies -M). The command
can include arguments. When started, it will inherit tar's
environment plus the following variables:

TAR_VERSION
GNU tar version number.

TAR_ARCHIVE
The name of the archive tar is processing.

TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR
Current blocking factor, i.e. number of 512-byte blocks
in a record.

TAR_VOLUME
Ordinal number of the volume tar is processing (set if
reading a multi-volume archive).

TAR_FORMAT
Format of the archive being processed. One of: gnu,
oldgnu, posix, ustar, v7.

TAR_SUBCOMMAND
A short option (with a leading dash) describing the
operation tar is executing.

TAR_FD File descriptor which can be used to communicate the

new volume name to tar.

If the info script fails, tar exits; otherwise, it begins

writing the next volume.

-L, --tape-length=N
Change tape after writing Nx1024 bytes. If N is followed by a
size suffix (see the subsection Size suffixes below), the suf‐
fix specifies the multiplicative factor to be used instead of
1024.

This option implies -M.

-M, --multi-volume
Create/list/extract multi-volume archive.

--rmt-command=COMMAND
Use COMMAND instead of rmt when accessing remote archives.
See the description of the -f option, above.

--rsh-command=COMMAND
Use COMMAND instead of rsh when accessing remote archives.
See the description of the -f option, above.

--volno-file=FILE
When this option is used in conjunction with --multi-volume,
tar will keep track of which volume of a multi-volume archive
it is working in FILE.

Device blocking
-b, --blocking-factor=BLOCKS
Set record size to BLOCKSx512 bytes.

-B, --read-full-records
When listing or extracting, accept incomplete input records
after end-of-file marker.
 -i, --ignore-zeros
Ignore zeroed blocks in archive. Normally two consecutive
512-blocks filled with zeroes mean EOF and tar stops reading
after encountering them. This option instructs it to read
further and is useful when reading archives created with the
-A option.

--record-size=NUMBER
Set record size. NUMBER is the number of bytes per record.
It must be multiple of 512. It can can be suffixed with a
size suffix, e.g. --record-size=10K, for 10 Kilobytes. See
the subsection Size suffixes, for a list of valid suffixes.

Archive format selection

-H, --format=FORMAT
Create archive of the given format. Valid formats are:

gnu GNU tar 1.13.x format

oldgnu GNU format as per tar <= 1.12.

pax, posix
POSIX 1003.1-2001 (pax) format.

ustar POSIX 1003.1-1988 (ustar) format.

v7 Old V7 tar format.

--old-archive, --portability
Same as --format=v7.

--pax-option=keyword[[:]=value][,keyword[[:]=value]]...
Control pax keywords when creating PAX archives (-H pax).
This option is equivalent to the -o option of the pax(1) util‐
ity.

--posix
Same as --format=posix.

-V, --label=TEXT
Create archive with volume name TEXT. If listing or extract‐
ing, use TEXT as a globbing pattern for volume name.

Compression options
-a, --auto-compress
Use archive suffix to determine the compression program.

-I, --use-compress-program=COMMAND
Filter data through COMMAND. It must accept the -d option,
for decompression. The argument can contain command line
options.

-j, --bzip2
Filter the archive through bzip2(1).

-J, --xz
Filter the archive through xz(1).

--lzip Filter the archive through lzip(1).

--lzma Filter the archive through lzma(1).

--lzop Filter the archive through lzop(1).

--no-auto-compress
Do not use archive suffix to determine the compression pro‐
gram.
 -z, --gzip, --gunzip, --ungzip
Filter the archive through gzip(1).

-Z, --compress, --uncompress

Filter the archive through compress(1).

--zstd Filter the archive through zstd(1).

Local file selection

--add-file=FILE
Add FILE to the archive (useful if its name starts with a
dash).

--backup[=CONTROL]
Backup before removal. The CONTROL argument, if supplied,
controls the backup policy. Its valid values are:

none, off
Never make backups.

t, numbered
Make numbered backups.

nil, existing
Make numbered backups if numbered backups exist, simple
backups otherwise.

never, simple
Always make simple backups

If CONTROL is not given, the value is taken from the VER‐

SION_CONTROL environment variable. If it is not set, existing
is assumed.

-C, --directory=DIR
Change to DIR before performing any operations. This option
is order-sensitive, i.e. it affects all options that follow.

--exclude=PATTERN
Exclude files matching PATTERN, a glob(3)-style wildcard pat‐
tern.

--exclude-backups
Exclude backup and lock files.

--exclude-caches
Exclude contents of directories containing file CACHEDIR.TAG,
except for the tag file itself.

--exclude-caches-all
Exclude directories containing file CACHEDIR.TAG and the file
itself.

--exclude-caches-under
Exclude everything under directories containing CACHEDIR.TAG

--exclude-ignore=FILE
Before dumping a directory, see if it contains FILE. If so,
read exclusion patterns from this file. The patterns affect
only the directory itself.

--exclude-ignore-recursive=FILE
Same as --exclude-ignore, except that patterns from FILE
affect both the directory and all its subdirectories.

--exclude-tag=FILE
Exclude contents of directories containing FILE, except for
FILE itself.
--exclude-tag-all=FILE
Exclude directories containing FILE.

--exclude-tag-under=FILE
Exclude everything under directories containing FILE.

--exclude-vcs
Exclude version control system directories.

--exclude-vcs-ignores
Exclude files that match patterns read from VCS-specific
ignore files. Supported files are: .cvsignore, .gitignore,
.bzrignore, and .hgignore.

-h, --dereference
Follow symlinks; archive and dump the files they point to.

--hard-dereference
Follow hard links; archive and dump the files they refer to.

-K, --starting-file=MEMBER
Begin at the given member in the archive.

--newer-mtime=DATE
Work on files whose data changed after the DATE. If DATE
starts with / or . it is taken to be a file name; the mtime of
that file is used as the date.

--no-null
Disable the effect of the previous --null option.

--no-recursion
Avoid descending automatically in directories.

--no-unquote
Do not unquote input file or member names.

--no-verbatim-files-from
Treat each line read from a file list as if it were supplied
in the command line. I.e., leading and trailing whitespace is
removed and, if the resulting string begins with a dash, it is
treated as tar command line option.

This is the default behavior. The --no-verbatim-files-from

option is provided as a way to restore it after --verba‐
tim-files-from option.

This option is positional: it affects all --files-from options

that occur after it in, until --verbatim-files-from option or
end of line, whichever occurs first.

It is implied by the --no-null option.

--null Instruct subsequent -T options to read null-terminated names

verbatim (disables special handling of names that start with a
dash).

See also --verbatim-files-from.

-N, --newer=DATE, --after-date=DATE

Only store files newer than DATE. If DATE starts with / or .
it is taken to be a file name; the ctime of that file is used
as the date.

--one-file-system
Stay in local file system when creating archive.
 -P, --absolute-names
Don't strip leading slashes from file names when creating ar‐
chives.

--recursion
Recurse into directories (default).

--suffix=STRING
Backup before removal, override usual suffix. Default suffix
is ~, unless overridden by environment variable SIM‐
PLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX.

-T, --files-from=FILE
Get names to extract or create from FILE.

Unless specified otherwise, the FILE must contain a list of

names separated by ASCII LF (i.e. one name per line). The
names read are handled the same way as command line arguments.
They undergo quote removal and word splitting, and any string
that starts with a - is handled as tar command line option.

If this behavior is undesirable, it can be turned off using

the --verbatim-files-from option.

The --null option instructs tar that the names in FILE are
separated by ASCII NUL character, instead of LF. It is useful
if the list is generated by find(1) -print0 predicate.

--unquote
Unquote file or member names (default).

--verbatim-files-from
Treat each line obtained from a file list as a file name, even
if it starts with a dash. File lists are supplied with the
--files-from (-T) option. The default behavior is to handle
names supplied in file lists as if they were typed in the com‐
mand line, i.e. any names starting with a dash are treated as
tar options. The --verbatim-files-from option disables this
behavior.

This option affects all --files-from options that occur after

it in the command line. Its effect is reverted by the
--no-verbatim-files-from} option.

This option is implied by the --null option.

See also --add-file.

-X, --exclude-from=FILE
Exclude files matching patterns listed in FILE.

File name transformations

--strip-components=NUMBER
Strip NUMBER leading components from file names on extraction.

--transform=EXPRESSION, --xform=EXPRESSION
Use sed replace EXPRESSION to transform file names.

File name matching options

These options affect both exclude and include patterns.

--anchored
Patterns match file name start.

--ignore-case
Ignore case.

--no-anchored
 Patterns match after any / (default for exclusion).

--no-ignore-case
Case sensitive matching (default).

--no-wildcards
Verbatim string matching.

--no-wildcards-match-slash
Wildcards do not match /.

--wildcards
Use wildcards (default for exclusion).

--wildcards-match-slash
Wildcards match / (default for exclusion).

Informative output
--checkpoint[=N]
Display progress messages every Nth record (default 10).

--checkpoint-action=ACTION
Run ACTION on each checkpoint.

--clamp-mtime
Only set time when the file is more recent than what was given
with --mtime.

--full-time
Print file time to its full resolution.

--index-file=FILE
Send verbose output to FILE.

-l, --check-links
Print a message if not all links are dumped.

--no-quote-chars=STRING
Disable quoting for characters from STRING.

--quote-chars=STRING
Additionally quote characters from STRING.

--quoting-style=STYLE
Set quoting style for file and member names. Valid values for
STYLE are literal, shell, shell-always, c, c-maybe, escape,
locale, clocale.

-R, --block-number
Show block number within archive with each message.

--show-omitted-dirs
When listing or extracting, list each directory that does not
match search criteria.

--show-transformed-names, --show-stored-names
Show file or archive names after transformation by --strip and
--transform options.

--totals[=SIGNAL]
Print total bytes after processing the archive. If SIGNAL is
given, print total bytes when this signal is delivered.
Allowed signals are: SIGHUP, SIGQUIT, SIGINT, SIGUSR1, and
SIGUSR2. The SIG prefix can be omitted.

--utc Print file modification times in UTC.

-v, --verbose
 Verbosely list files processed. Each instance of this option
on the command line increases the verbosity level by one. The
maximum verbosity level is 3. For a detailed discussion of
how various verbosity levels affect tar's output, please refer
to GNU Tar Manual, subsection 2.5.1 "The --verbose Option".

--warning=KEYWORD
Enable or disable warning messages identified by KEYWORD. The
messages are suppressed if KEYWORD is prefixed with no- and
enabled otherwise.

Multiple --warning messages accumulate.

Keywords controlling general tar operation:

all Enable all warning messages. This is the default.

none Disable all warning messages.

filename-with-nuls
"%s: file name read contains nul character"

alone-zero-block
"A lone zero block at %s"

Keywords applicable for tar --create:

cachedir
"%s: contains a cache directory tag %s; %s"

file-shrank
"%s: File shrank by %s bytes; padding with zeros"

xdev "%s: file is on a different filesystem; not dumped"

file-ignored
"%s: Unknown file type; file ignored"
"%s: socket ignored"
"%s: door ignored"

file-unchanged
"%s: file is unchanged; not dumped"

ignore-archive
"%s: file is the archive; not dumped"

file-removed
"%s: File removed before we read it"

file-changed
"%s: file changed as we read it"

failed-read
Suppresses warnings about unreadable files or directo‐
ries. This keyword applies only if used together with
the --ignore-failed-read option.

Keywords applicable for tar --extract:

existing-file
"%s: skipping existing file"

timestamp
"%s: implausibly old time stamp %s"
"%s: time stamp %s is %s s in the future"

contiguous-cast
"Extracting contiguous files as regular files"
 symlink-cast
"Attempting extraction of symbolic links as hard links"

unknown-cast
"%s: Unknown file type '%c', extracted as normal file"

ignore-newer
"Current %s is newer or same age"

unknown-keyword
"Ignoring unknown extended header keyword '%s'"

decompress-program
Controls verbose description of failures occurring when
trying to run alternative decompressor programs. This
warning is disabled by default (unless --verbose is
used). A common example of what you can get when using
this warning is:

$ tar --warning=decompress-program -x -f archive.Z

tar (child): cannot run compress: No such file or directory
tar (child): trying gzip

This means that tar first tried to decompress archive.Z

using compress, and, when that failed, switched to
gzip.

record-size
"Record size = %lu blocks"

Keywords controlling incremental extraction:

rename-directory
"%s: Directory has been renamed from %s"
"%s: Directory has been renamed"

new-directory
"%s: Directory is new"

xdev "%s: directory is on a different device: not purging"

bad-dumpdir
"Malformed dumpdir: 'X' never used"

-w, --interactive, --confirmation

Ask for confirmation for every action.

Compatibility options
-o When creating, same as --old-archive. When extracting, same
as --no-same-owner.

Size suffixes
Suffix Units Byte Equivalent
b Blocks SIZE x 512
B Kilobytes SIZE x 1024
c Bytes SIZE
G Gigabytes SIZE x 1024^3
K Kilobytes SIZE x 1024
k Kilobytes SIZE x 1024
M Megabytes SIZE x 1024^2
P Petabytes SIZE x 1024^5
T Terabytes SIZE x 1024^4
w Words SIZE x 2

RETURN VALUE top

 Tar exit code indicates whether it was able to successfully perform
the requested operation, and if not, what kind of error occurred.

0 Successful termination.

1 Some files differ. If tar was invoked with the --compare

(--diff, -d) command line option, this means that some files
in the archive differ from their disk counterparts. If tar
was given one of the --create, --append or --update options,
this exit code means that some files were changed while being
archived and so the resulting archive does not contain the
exact copy of the file set.

2 Fatal error. This means that some fatal, unrecoverable error

occurred.

If a subprocess that had been invoked by tar exited with a nonzero

exit code, tar itself exits with that code as well. This can happen,
for example, if a compression option (e.g. -z) was used and the
external compressor program failed. Another example is rmt failure
during backup to a remote device.

SEE ALSO top

bzip2(1), compress(1), gzip(1), lzma(1), lzop(1), rmt(8), symlink(7),

xz(1), zstd(1).

Complete tar manual: run info tar or use emacs(1) info mode to read
it.

Online copies of GNU tar documentation in various formats can be

found at:

http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual

BUG REPORTS top

Report bugs to <[email protected]>.

COPYRIGHT top

Copyright © 2013-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

COLOPHON top

This page is part of the tar (an archiver program) project.

Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/tar/⟩. If you have a bug report for
this manual page, see ⟨http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=tar⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨git://git.savannah.gnu.org/tar.git⟩ on 2020-02-08. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the repository
was 2020-02-08.) If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML
version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-to-
date source for the page, or you have corrections or improvements to
the information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original
manual page), send a mail to [email protected]