Shell Programming and Scripting

Function Letters
       The function portion of the key is specified by one  of    the  following
       letters:
 
       c
 
       Create.  Writing begins at the beginning of the tarfile, instead of
       at the end.
 
       r
 
       Replace. The named files are written at the end of the  tarfile.  A
       file  created  with    extended headers must be updated with extended
       headers (see E flag under Function Modifiers). A file created with-
       out extended headers cannot be modified with extended headers.
 
       t
 
       Table of Contents. The names of the specified files are listed each
       time they occur in the tarfile. If no file argument    is  specified,
       the    names  of  all files and any associated extended attributes in
       the tarfile are listed. With the v  function  modifier,  additional
       information for the specified files is displayed.
 
       u
 
       Update.  The  named    files are written at the end of the tarfile if
       they are not already in the tarfile, or if they have been  modified
       since last written to that tarfile. An update can be rather slow. A
       tarfile created on a 5.x system cannot be updated on a 4.x  system.
       A  file created with extended headers must be updated with extended
       headers (see E flag under Function Modifiers). A file created with-
       out extended headers cannot be modified with extended headers.
 
       x
 
       Extract  or restore. The named files are extracted from the tarfile
       and written to the directory specified in the tarfile, relative  to
       the    current  directory.  Use  the relative path names of files and
       directories to be extracted.
 
       Absolute path names contained in the tar archive are unpacked using
       the    absolute path names, that is, the leading forward slash (/) is
       not stripped off.
 
       If a named file matches a directory whose contents has been written
       to the tarfile, this directory is recursively extracted. The owner,
       modification time, and mode are restored (if possible);  otherwise,
       to restore owner, you must be the super-user. Character-special and
       block-special devices (created by mknod(1M)) can only be  extracted
       by  the  super-user.  If  no file argument is specified, the entire
       content of the tarfile is extracted. If the tarfile    contains  sev-
       eral  files    with the same name, each file is written to the appro-
       priate directory, overwriting the previous one. Filename  substitu-
       tion  wildcards  cannot  be    used for extracting files from the ar-
       chive. Rather, use a command of the form:
 
         tar xvf ... /dev/rmt/0 `tar tf ... /dev/rmt/0 | grep 'pattern' `
 
       When extracting tapes created with the r or u functions, directory mod-
       ification  times  can not be set correctly. These same functions cannot
       be used with many tape drives due to tape drive limitations such as the
       absence of backspace or append capabilities.
 
       When  using  the  r,  u, or x functions or the X function modifier, the
       named files must match exactly the corresponding files in the  tarfile.
       For  example,  to  extract ./thisfile, you must specify ./thisfile, and
       not thisfile. The t function displays how each file was archived.
 
There is always this, if the line is not too long:
 
$ tar cf xxxx.tar `find ...`

pax -w -s '/^.*[^h]$//' -s '/^.*[^s]h$//' -s '/^.*[^.]sh$//' -s '/^sh$//' . > sh_scripts.tar