[replstr] [-C directory] [-I file] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION

     The tar command creates, adds files to, or extracts files from an archive
     file in tar format.  A tar archive is often stored on a magnetic tape,
     but can be stored equally well on a floppy, CD-ROM, or in a regular disk
     file.

     One of the following flags must be present:

     -c      Create new archive, or overwrite an existing archive, adding the
             specified files to it.

     -r      Append the named new files to existing archive.  Note that this
             will only work on media on which an end-of-file mark can be over-
             written.

     -t      List contents of archive.  If any files are named on the command
             line, only those files will be listed.

     -u      Alias for -r.

     -x      Extract files from archive.  If any files are named on the com-
             mand line, only those files will be extracted from the archive.
             If more than one copy of a file exists in the archive, later
             copies will overwrite earlier copies during extraction.  The file
             mode and modification time are preserved if possible.  The file
             mode is subject to modification by the umask(2).

     In addition to the flags mentioned above, any of the following flags may
     be used:

     -b blocking factor
             Set blocking factor to use for the archive, with 512 byte blocks.
             The default is 20, the maximum is 126.  Archives with a blocking
             factor larger 63 violate the POSIX standard and will not be por-
             table to all systems.

     -e      Stop after first error.

     -f archive
             Filename where the archive is stored.  Defaults to /dev/sa0.

     -h      Follow symbolic links as if they were normal files or directo-
             ries.

     -j      Compress archives using bzip2(1).

     -m      Do not preserve modification time.

     -O      Write old-style (non-POSIX) archives.

             Modify the file or archive member names specified by the pattern
             or file operands according to the substitution expression
             replstr, using the syntax of the ed(1) utility regular expres-
             sions.  The format of these regular expressions are:
                   /old/new/[gp]
             As in ed(1), old is a basic regular expression and new can con-
             tain an ampersand (`&'), \n (where n is a digit) back-references,
             or subexpression matching.  The old string may also contain new-
             line characters.  Any non-null character can be used as a delim-
             iter (`/' is shown here).  Multiple -s expressions can be speci-
             fied.  The expressions are applied in the order they are speci-
             fied on the command line, terminating with the first successful
             substitution.  The optional trailing g continues to apply the
             substitution expression to the pathname substring which starts
             with the first character following the end of the last successful
             substitution.  The first unsuccessful substitution stops the
             operation of the g option.  The optional trailing p will cause
             the final result of a successful substitution to be written to
             standard error in the following format:

                   <original pathname> >> <new pathname>

             File or archive member names that substitute to the empty string
             are not selected and will be skipped.

     -v      Verbose operation mode.

     -w      Interactively rename files.  This option causes tar to prompt the
             user for the filename to use when storing or extracting files in
             an archive.

     -y      Compress archives using bzip2(1).

     -z      Compress archive using gzip(1).

     -C directory
             This is a positional argument which sets the working directory
             for the following files.  When extracting, files will be
             extracted into the specified directory; when creating, the speci-
             fied files will be matched from the directory.

     -H      Follow symlinks given on command line only.

     -L      Follow all symlinks.

     -P      Do not strip leading slashes (`/') from pathnames.  The default
             is to strip leading slashes.

     -I file
             This is a positional argument which reads the names of files to
             archive or extract from the given file, one per line.

EXIT STATUS

     The tar utility will exit with one of the following values:

     0   All files were processed successfully.

     1   An error occurred.

     Whenever tar cannot create a file or a link when extracting an archive or
     cannot find a file while writing an archive, or cannot preserve the user
     ID, group ID, file mode, or access and modification times when the -p
     option is specified, a diagnostic message is written to standard error
     and a non-zero exit value will be returned, but processing will continue.
     In the case where tar cannot create a link to a file, tar will not create
     a second copy of the file.

     If the extraction of a file from an archive is prematurely terminated by
     a signal or error, tar may have only partially extracted the file the
     user wanted.  Additionally, the file modes of extracted files and direc-
     tories may have incorrect file bits, and the modification and access
     times may be wrong.

     If the creation of an archive is prematurely terminated by a signal or
     error, tar may have only partially created the archive which may violate
     the specific archive format specification.

COMPATIBILITY

     The -L flag is not portable to other versions of tar where it may have a
     different meaning.

SEE ALSO

     cpio(1), pax(1)

HISTORY

     A tar command first appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

AUTHORS

     Keith Muller at the University of California, San Diego.

BSD                            February 7, 2001                            BSD