TAR(1) GNU TAR Manual TAR(1)
NAME
 tar - an archiving utility
SYNOPSIS
 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
 This manpage is a short description of GNU tar. For a detailed discus-
 sion, 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
 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 lo-
 cated either on the local or on a remote machine.
 Option styles
 Options to GNU tar can be given in three different styles. In tradi-
 tional 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 letter
 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, pro-
 vided that this does not create ambiguity. Arguments to long options
 are supplied either as a separate command line word, immediately fol-
 lowing the option, or separated from the option by an equals sign with
 no intervening whitespace. Optional arguments must always use the lat-
 ter 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-op-
 tional 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, oth-
 erwise the resulting archive might be unusable with non-GNU im-
 plementations of tar. Notice also that when more than one ar-
 chive 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 arguments
 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 ar-
 chive 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 argu-
 ments, it prints the volume label (if any) and exits with status
 0. When one or more command line arguments are given. tar com-
 pares 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 op-
 tions. Notice, that newer files don't replace their old archive
 copies, but instead are appended to the end of archive. The re-
 sulting 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 ex-
 tracted.
 --show-defaults
 Show built-in defaults for various tar options and exit. No ar-
 guments are allowed.
 -?, --help
 Display a short option summary and exit. No arguments allowed.
 --usage
 Display a list of available options and exit. No arguments al-
 lowed.
 --version
 Print program version and copyright information and exit.
OPTIONS
 Operation modifiers
 --check-device
 Check device numbers when creating incremental archives (de-
 fault).
 -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 incre-
 mental 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, cre-
 ate 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. Cur-
 rently only --level=0 is meaningful: it instructs tar to trun-
 cate the snapshot file before dumping, thereby forcing a level 0
 dump.
 -n, --seek
 Assume the archive is seekable. Normally tar determines auto-
 matically 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, re-
 fer 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 exist-
 ing 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 stan-
 dard compression suffixes recognizable by --auto-compress).
 --overwrite
 Overwrite existing files when extracting.
 --overwrite-dir
 Overwrite metadata of existing directories when extracting (de-
 fault).
 --recursive-unlink
 Recursively remove all files in the directory prior to extract-
 ing 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 follow-
 ing 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 oper-
 ation 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 ar-
 chive (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 current
 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 translation for a
 single UID. It must consist of two fields, delimited 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 ar-
 chive is uniform and reproducible.
 Using --sort=inode reduces the number of disk seeks made when
 creating the archive and thus can considerably speed up archiva-
 tion. This sorting order is supported only if the underlying
 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. Oth-
 erwise, 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 output.
 An archive name that has a colon in it specifies a file or de-
 vice 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) command.
 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 en-
 vironment 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 oper-
 ation 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 writ-
 ing 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 suffix
 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 af-
 ter 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 af-
 ter 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 sub-
 section 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) utility.
 --posix
 Same as --format=posix.
 -V, --label=TEXT
 Create archive with volume name TEXT. If listing or extracting,
 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 program.
 -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, con-
 trols 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 re-
 moved 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 op-
 tion 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 mtime 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 SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUF-
 FIX.
 -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 sepa-
 rated 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 be-
 havior.
 This option affects all --files-from options that occur after it
 in the command line. Its effect is reverted by the --no-verba-
 tim-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, lo-
 cale, 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 max-
 imum 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 en-
 abled 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
 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
 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
 Report bugs to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
COPYRIGHT
 Copyright (C) 2013-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/li-
 censes/gpl.html>
 This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
 There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
TAR July 13, 2020 TAR(1)