UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi All,

There 2 files in the folder /temp/tst/
1.txt
2.txt

When I run the command

find /temp/tst \( -name "*.txt" \) -exec tar cf /temp/123.tar {} \;

it creates the tar file 123.tar with only one file in it and that is 2.txt.But if I use the command

find /temp/tst \( -name "*.txt" \) -exec tar cf /temp/123.tar {} + 1>/dev/null

it creates both the files in the 123.tar file which is what I want.

But I don't understand why is this happening.

Any comments experts?

The + tells find to only run it once. It runs it like "tar -cf file.tar file1 file2", which includes both files in one archive, file.tar.

The version without the + runs tar twice, once for each file. tar does not automatically append, it replaces, so it replaces the first archive.