I'm working on a 'find' command which uses the -exec option to tar a listing of files that it finds. Is there a single option available that would both 1) create the TAR file if it doesn't exist and/or 2) update the TAR file if it already exists?

Currently when I want manually create a TAR file and then add files to it I need to issue two different options to the TAR command. In other words, my command sequence needs to look like:

tar -cvf myTarFile.txt fileA.txt
tar -uvf myTarFile.txt fileB.txt
tar -uvf myTarFile.txt fileC.txt

So in the first iteration I have to include the -c (e.g. create TAR file) option. And in subsequent iterations I have to include the -u (e.g. update TAR file) option.

I want to avoid programatically having to issue a different command for the first iteration. Is this possible?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

You can issue tar -uvf myTarFile.txt as the first command.(before iteration)
Then in the iteration use tar -uvf myTarFile.txt filei.

Use pax instead of tar and you won't need to issue two commands. After creating the archive you can use tar on it.

Thank you both for the solutions. Great help...I appreciate it.