Editing Tar (computing) (section)

==Uses==
=== Command syntax ===
 tar [-options] <name of the tar archive> [files or directories which to add into archive]
Basic options:
* <code>-c, --create</code> — create a new archive;
* <code>-a, --auto-compress</code>  — additionally compress the archive with a compressor which will be automatically determined by the file name extension of the archive. If the archive's name ends with {{code|*.tar.gz}} then use [[gzip]], if {{code|*.tar.xz}} then use [[XZ Utils|xz]], {{code|*.tar.zst}} for [[Zstandard]] etc.;
* <code>-r, --append</code> — append files to the end of an archive;
* <code>-x, --extract, --get</code> — extract files from an archive;
* <code>-f, --file</code> — specify the archive's name;
* <code>-t, --list</code> — show a list of files and folders in the archive;
* <code>-v, --verbose</code> — show a list of processed files.

=== Basic usage ===
Create an archive file {{code|archive.tar}} from the file {{code|README.txt}} and directory {{code|src}}:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ tar -cvf archive.tar README.txt src
</syntaxhighlight>

Extract contents for the {{code|archive.tar}} into the current directory:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ tar -xvf archive.tar
</syntaxhighlight>

Create an archive file {{code|archive.tar.gz}} from the file {{code|README.txt}} and directory {{code|src}} and compress it with [[gzip]] :
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ tar -cavf archive.tar.gz README.txt src
</syntaxhighlight>

Extract contents for the {{code|archive.tar.gz}} into the current directory:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ tar -xvf archive.tar.gz
</syntaxhighlight>

===Tarpipe===
A tarpipe is the method of writing an archive to [[Standard streams#Standard output (stdout)|standard output]] and piping it to another tar process on its [[Standard streams#Standard input (stdin)|standard input]], working in another directory, where it is unpacked.  This process copies an entire source directory tree including all special files, for example:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ tar cf - srcdir | tar x -C destdir
</syntaxhighlight>

===Software distribution===
The tar format continues to be used extensively for [[Open source|open-source]] [[software distribution]]. *NIX-distributions use it in various source- and binary-package distribution mechanisms, with most software [[source code]] made available in compressed tar archives.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}