Editing Tar (computing) (section)

==Suffixes for compressed files==
''tar'' archive files usually have the file suffix ''.tar'' (e.g. ''somefile.tar'').

A tar archive file contains uncompressed byte streams of the files which it contains. To achieve archive compression, a variety of [[data compression|compression]] programs are available, such as [[gzip]], [[bzip2]], [[XZ Utils|xz]], [[lzip]], [[Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm|lzma]], [[zstd]], or [[compress]], which compress the entire tar archive. Typically, the compressed form of the archive receives a filename by appending the format-specific compressor suffix to the archive file name. For example, a tar archive ''archive.tar'', is named ''archive.tar.gz'', when it is compressed by gzip.

Popular tar programs like the [[Berkeley Software Distribution|BSD]] and [[GNU]] versions of tar support the [[Command-line interface|command-line options]] ''Z'' (compress), ''z'' (gzip), and ''j'' (bzip2) to compress or decompress the archive file upon creation or unpacking. Relatively recent additions include ''--lzma'' ([[Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm|LZMA]]), ''--lzop'' ([[lzop]]), ''--xz'' or ''J'' ([[XZ Utils|xz]]), ''--lzip'' (lzip), and ''--zstd''.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2019-01/msg00001.html | title = tar-1.31 released [stable] | last = Poznyakoff | first = Sergey | date = 2019-01-02 | website = GNU mailing lists | access-date = 2019-08-06}}</ref> The decompression of these formats is handled automatically if supported filename extensions are used, and compression is handled automatically using the same filename extensions if the option ''--auto-compress'' (short form ''-a'') is passed to an applicable version of GNU tar.<ref name="gnu.org"/> BSD tar detects an even wider range of compressors ([[lrzip]], [[LZ4 (compression algorithm)|lz4]]), using not the filename but the data within.<ref>{{man|1|tar|FreeBSD}}</ref> Unrecognized formats are to be manually compressed or decompressed by piping.

[[MS-DOS]]'s [[8.3 filename]] limitations resulted in additional conventions for naming compressed tar archives. However, this practice has declined with [[File Allocation Table|FAT]] now offering [[long filename]]s.

[[File:Targzip.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|Tar archiving is often used together with a compression method, such as [[gzip]], to create a compressed archive. As shown, the combination of the files in the archive is compressed as one unit.]]

{| class="wikitable"
|+ File suffix equivalents<ref name="gnu.org"/>
!Compressor
! Long !! Short
|-
|[[bzip2]]
| .tar.bz2 || .tb2, .tbz, .tbz2, .tz2
|-
|[[gzip]]
| .tar.gz || .taz, .tgz
|-
|[[lzip]]
| .tar.lz ||
|-
|[[Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm|lzma]]
| .tar.lzma || .tlz
|-
|[[lzop]]
| .tar.lzo ||
|-
|[[XZ Utils|xz]]
| .tar.xz || .txz
|-
|[[compress]]
| .tar.Z || .tZ, .taZ
|-
|[[Zstandard|zstd]]
| .tar.zst || .tzst
|}