UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I want to untar all log files from following tarred directory hierarchy

Log_files.tar.gz/subject*.tar.gz/project*/*.log

It means there are subject1.tar.gz to subject9.tar.gz and in those tarred subect directories there are project1 - project5 directories and in those directories there are multiple log files.

I want to untar and "remove" all log files from those project directories to new directory untar_log_files/subject*/project*.

I have tried tar -zxvf Log_files.tar.gz Log_files/subject*/project*/*.log
but not working!

any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
RV

tar does not take * wildcards when you are trying to extract files by name.

And, if you have compressed files inside a tar file, tar cannot decompress them and extract from them until they are standlone tar archive files.

All this assumes I understood what is going on here. Correct me where I don't get it.

Hi jim,

Thanks for the response.
What I believe is tar can use wildcard * but you are right it cannot untar file from inside the other compressed tar files.

I came up with solution where the directories Log_files/subject1/project* all are already created and it works with

tar -zxvf Log_flies/subject1.tar.gz Log_files/subject1/project*/*.log

However is there any way wherein the directories are created when I untar it and I dont need to make the directories manually.

Thanks,
rv