UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,
1 - How to select files to tar from a dir (indir) to the tar command?

2 - How to select the target directory where the files in a tar file should go to - I know that by default, tar remembers the path and restores files to that path.

I am using HP-UX

Thanks.

I think that as a thumb rule, always use the relative path while creating archives with the tar command. Say you want to create a tar of all files with pattern *.txt from the /tmp directory, do it like this:

Code:

cd /tmp; tar -cf text.tar *.txt

This answers your first question. And also the second: since the path you have given to tar is a relative path (not starting with "/"), you can extract to a chosen directory like this:

Code:

cd /dir/to/extract; tar -xf text.tar

This will create the necessary directory structure under the directory where you have chosen to extract the files.

Got it, thanks.

See Untar to different location