Working with compression and tar files

Please show me several examples of using the GNU/Linux tar command with compression.

Here are several examples of using the GNU/Linux tar command with compression:

Creating a compressed archive:

• Using gzip compression:

  Bash

  tar -czvf archive.tar.gz directory_to_compress/
  

  This creates a compressed archive named archive.tar.gz containing the contents of the specified directory.

• Using bzip2 compression:

  Bash

  tar -cjvf archive.tar.bz2 directory_to_compress/
  

  This creates a compressed archive named archive.tar.bz2 using bzip2 compression.

• Using xz compression:

  Bash

  tar -cJvf archive.tar.xz directory_to_compress/
  

  This creates a compressed archive named archive.tar.xz using xz compression, often providing the best compression ratio.

Extracting a compressed archive:

• Extracting a gzip-compressed archive:

  Bash

  tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz
  

• Extracting a bzip2-compressed archive:

  Bash

  tar -xjvf archive.tar.bz2
  

• Extracting an xz-compressed archive:

  Bash

  tar -xJvf archive.tar.xz
  

Additional options for compression:

• Specifying compression level with gzip:

  Bash

  tar -czvf archive.tar.gz -9 directory_to_compress/
  

  This compresses using gzip with the highest compression level (9).

• Auto-selecting compression based on file extension:

  Bash

  tar -caf archive.tar.bz2 directory_to_compress/
  

  This uses bzip2 compression because the archive name has a .bz2 extension.

Key points to remember:

• The -c option is used for creating an archive.
• The -v option provides verbose output, showing the files being processed.
• The -f option specifies the name of the archive file.
• The -z, -j, or -J options specify the compression method (gzip, bzip2, or xz, respectively).
• You can use -C to specify a different directory to extract files into.
• For more detailed information, refer to the man tar command.