UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I've got this Files.tgz containing

Fruits/Apple.txt
Drinks/Soda.txt
Drinks/Pepsi.txt

I would like to extract all files/directories with pattern "Fruits".

So, what I did was

tar -xvf File.tgz `tar -tf Files.tgz | grep 'Fruits'`

However, output is:-

Files/Fruits
Files/Fruits/Apple.txt
tar: Files/Fruits/Apple.txt: Not found in archive
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

Does anyone know why this is happening and what do I do to not get those errors? Thanks.

First you asked tar to extract Files/Fruits. That a directory, so all of the contents were extracted.. in this case Files/Fruits/Apple.txt. Then you asked it to extract Files/Fruits/Apple.txt. That was already extracted from the first step. You can't extract a file multiple times

just do:

tar xvf tarfile Files/Fruits
and you will get everything in Fruits

Hi Perderabo. Thanks for the reply. I know where you are coming from. Logically, I could have just called tar xvf tarfile Files/Fruits. However, in some cases, my Files.tgz will also contain

Fruits/Apple.txt
Fruits/Banana.txt
Drinks/Soda.txt
Drinks/Pepsi.txt
Drinks/StarFruits.txt
Drinks/GrapeFruits.txt

In which case, I would want to extract all files with pattern 'Fruits', which would be
Fruits/Apple.txt
Fruits/Banana.txt
Drinks/StarFruits.txt
Drinks/GrapeFruits.txt

That is why I need to use the 'grep' command. Unfortunately, when I grep the tar -tf, I would get
Files/Fruits
Files/Fruits/Apple.txt
Files/Fruits/Banana.txt
...
....
.....

So, when I do tar -xvf, I will first extract "Files/Fruits" (no problem with that). Then, I will extract "Files/Fruits/Apple.txt" (problem because it's already extracted), and so on.
Can someone think of a workaround? Thanks.

A small awk script which suppresses the printing of a line if it's the proper prefix of the line following it would solve this. You might as well make it do the grepping as well.

Possible to do it in to command line?
Is it possible to ignore the error? Any options to do so?

I don't understand what the problem is. You're getting everything extracted that you want extracted. And nothing extra is being extracted.

HI Perderabo. You are right. I am getting everything from the extraction. However, I am getting errors. Is there somewhere I can ignore the errors and exit gracefully as a success, instead of a failure/error?

Thanks.