TAR(1)

NAME
tar - archiver

SYNOPSIS
tar key [ file ... ]

DESCRIPTION

Tar saves and restores file trees. It is most often used to transport a tree of files from one system to another. The key is a string that contains at most one function letter plus optional modifiers. Other arguments to the command are names of files or directories to be dumped or restored. A directory name implies all the contained files and subdirectories (recursively).

The function is one of the following letters:

c   Create a new archive with the given files as contents.

x   Extract the named files from the archive. If a file is a directory, the directory is extracted recursively. Modes are restored if possible. If no file argument is given, extract the entire archive. If the archive contains multiple entries for a file, the latest one wins.

t   List all occurrences of each file in the archive, or of all files if there are no file arguments.

r   The named files are appended to the archive.

The modifiers are:

v   (verbose) Print the name of each file treated preceded by the function letter. With t, give more details about the archive entries.

f   Use the next argument as the name of the archive instead of the default standard input (for keys x and t) or standard output (for keys c and r).

u   Use the next (numeric) argument as the user id for files in the output archive. This is only useful when moving files to a non-Plan 9 system.

g   Use the next (numeric) argument as the group id for files in the output archive.

p   Create archive in POSIX ustar format, which raises the maximum pathname length from 100 to 256 bytes. Ustar archives are recognised automatically by tar when reading archives.

R   When extracting, ignore leading slash on file names, i.e., extract all files relative to the current directory.

T   Modifies the behavior of x to set the mode and modified time of each file to that specified in the archive.

EXAMPLES
Tar can be used to copy hierarchies thus:

        @{cd fromdir && tar cp .} | @{cd todir && tar xT}

SOURCE
/usr/local/plan9/src/cmd/tar.c

SEE ALSO
ar(1), bundle(1), tapefs(1)

BUGS
There is no way to ask for any but the last occurrence of a file.
File path names are limited to 100 characters (256 when using ustar format).
The tar format allows specification of links and symbolic links, concepts foreign to Plan 9: they are ignored.