(tar)How to Archive Directories

Creating an Archive of a Subdirectory bis

Using tar in Verbose Mode bis

How to Create Archives

How to Archive Directories
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   When the names of files or members specify directories, the
operation of `tar' is more complex.  Generally, when a directory is
named, `tar' also operates on all the contents of the directory,
recursively.  Thus, to `tar', the file name `/' names the entire file
system.

   To archive the entire contents of a directory, use `--create' (`-c')
or `--append' (`-r') as usual, and specify the name of the directory.
For example, to archive all the contents of the current directory, use
`tar --create --file=ARCHIVE-NAME .'.  Doing this will give the archive
members names starting with `./'.  To archive the contents of a
directory named `foodir', use `tar --create --file=ARCHIVE-NAME
foodir'.  In this case, the member names will all start with `foodir/'.

   If you give `tar' a command such as `tar --create --file=foo.tar .',
it will report `tar: foo.tar is the archive; not dumped'.  This happens
because the archive `foo.tar' is created before putting any files into
it.  Then, when `tar' attempts to add all the files in the directory
`.' to the archive, it notices that the file `foo.tar' is the same as
the archive, and skips it.  (It makes no sense to put an archive into
itself.)  GNU `tar' will continue in this case, and create the archive
as normal, except for the exclusion of that one file.  Other versions
of `tar', however, are not so clever, and will enter an infinite loop
when this happens, so you should not depend on this behavior.  In
general, make sure that the archive is not inside a directory being
dumped.

   When extracting files, you can also name directory archive members on
the command line.  In this case, `tar' extracts all the archive members
whose names begin with the name of the directory.  As usual, `tar' is
not particularly clever about interpreting member names.  The command
`tar --extract --file=ARCHIVE-NAME .' will not extract all the contents
of the archive, but only those members whose member names begin with
`./'.

Creating an Archive of a Subdirectory bis