(tar)Extracting Directories ter

Extracting Specific Files ter

How to Extract Members from an Archive

Extracting Directories
----------------------

     *(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)*

   To extract a directory and all the files it contains, use the
directory's name as a file name argument in conjunction with `tar
+extract'.  Remember-`tar' stores and extracts file names relative to
the working directory.

   In a previous example you stored the directory `~/practice' in the
archive file `~/music'.  If you delete the contents of `practice', you
can restore them using `tar'.

   First, change into the `practice' subdirectory (`cd ~/practice').
Then, remove all the files in `~/practice' (`rm *').  If you list the
contents of the directory, you should now see that it is empty:

     %ls
     %

   Let's try to restore the contents of `practice' by extracting them
from the archive file `~/music':

     tar --extract --file=~/music practice

   Now, list the contents of `practice' again:

     %ls
     practice

   What happened to the files?  When you created `~/music', your
working directory was your home directory.  When you extracted
`~/music', your working directory was `~/practice'. `tar' stored the
files in `practice' relative to your home directory, and then extracted
them relative to `~/practice'.  The files are now in a new
subdirectory, called `~/practice/practice'.

   To restore your files to their old positions, delete the new
directory and its contents, and then redo the example above with your
home directory as the working directory:

     % rm ~/practice/practice/*
     % rmdir practice
     % cd ..
     % tar --extract --file=music practice

   (`tar' will report that it is unable to create the directory
`~/practice' because it already exists.  This will not effect the
extraction of the other archive members.)