.tar File- What Is, How To Read

[robinson10]

What is a .tar file? What's its use? And how do I read it?

[JohnKiniston]

A tar file is a file archive, They are used to move groups of files from system to system similar to a .sit file on a macintosh or a .zip file on a pc (Without compression however.)

Do you need to extract the file on your Zaurus or on a PC or Mac?

[Teletubbie]

Hi,
tar is an archive like zip, but it comes from unix. This means that it can handle some additional information like data permision rights. If you have linux you can just take gnu tar. It is often provided by linux base system. Just type:

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man tarIf you see the man page, tar should be installed.
You can also get gnu tar wor windows. Winzip can also extract tar files. Under windows I always use:
http://www.7-zip.org/
Cheers,
Sam

[Tehas]

On Linux:

To see a tar file's contents use the "t" option:

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tar -tf mytarfile.tar
To extract the contents use the "x" option:

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tar -xf mytarfile.tar
manpage for tar command

[qx773]

tar is an abbreviation of the words, "tape archive."  Originally, Unix systems backed up data on tape drives, because hard drives did not exist at the time or were really expensive or had less storage capacity than tapes.