Extract tar.gz File

I have downloaded a file called foo.tar.gz from the Internets. How do I extract tar.gz file under Linux / UNIX like operating systems using command line options?

A tarball (tar.gz file) is nothing but compressed tar archive.

The tar program provides the ability to create tar archives, as well as various other kinds of manipulation. For example, you can use Tar on previously created archives to extract files, to store additional files, or to update or list files which were already stored.

Initially, tar archives were used to store files conveniently on magnetic tape. The name “Tar” comes from this use; it stands for tape archiver. Despite the utility’s name, Tar can direct its output to available devices, files, or other programs (using pipes), it can even access remote devices or files (as archives). The tar command is available on Linux (CentOS/RHEL/Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu and all other distros), BSD (OpenBSD/NetBSD/FreeBSD), Apple OS X, HP-UX, AIX, and other Unix like operating systems.

Syntax

The syntax is as follows:

tar options file.tar.gz
tar options file.tar.gz pattern
tar -xf file.tar.gz
tar -xvf file.tar.gz
tar -zxvf file.tar.gz
tar -zxvf file.tar.gz file1 file2 dir1 dir2

Extract tr.gz. file

To extract one or more members from an archive, enter:
$ tar -zxvf {file.tar.gz}
If your tarball name is backup.tar.gz, enter the following at a shell prompt to extract files:
$ tar -zxvf backup.tar.gz
To extract resume.doc file from backup.tar.gz tarball, enter:
$ tar -zxvf backup.tar.gz resume.doc
Where,

1. -z : Work on gzip compression automatically when reading archives.
2. -x : Extract archives.
3. -v : Produce verbose output i.e. display progress and extracted file list on screen.
4. -f : Read the archive from the archive to the specified file. In this example, read backups.tar.gz archive.
5. -t : List the files in the archive.

Extracting an entire archive

To extract an entire archive, specify the archive file name only, with no individual file names as arguments.
tar -zxvf backup.tar.gz

List files in archive

To view a detailed table of contents (list of file), enter::
$ tar -tvf backup.tar.gz

See also

• Man pages: tar(1)

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