I want to make a tar file with everything inside the directory. This includes files, folders, and hidden "." files and folders.

Ive tried two commands

(lets say current directory Im in is /hello)

tar -zcvf something.tar.gz .

This does it but inside the archive, it adds a "." to the front of all files/folders

Next I tried:

tar -zcvf something.tar.gz *

This does it better but doesnt copy .htaccess and files that are hidden it seems

How can I do it?

It is best to not stand in the directory you want to tar. Assuming you want to tar the user directory in /home/user:If you do not have write permissions in /home you can do:

I know. I just perfer to do it this way (personal preference)

Tried that

cd /home
tar -zcvf filename.tar.gz user/

And it make a tar but inside there was only "filename.tar 2"

What went wrong?

You might want to reconsider you personal preference. If you do it your way then:
- the tar file itself ends up in the tar file
- untarring might overwrite files that do not want/need to be overwritten.

Anyway:Did something go wrong? Without knowing what is inside the directory you tarred I cannot give you any pointers.

Here's a real life example:

Don't mind and I can exclude the tar file itself.

There are files and folders inside of the directory. But all I got is:

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7990/dg7s.png

Yopu post doesn't tell us too much.
- Post the exact command you used and from which location.
- Also post the content of the dir you try to tar (if big: +/- 10 lines).
- Post the output (again: first 10 lines if big) of the following command: tar tf name.of.tar.gz

If you really don't want to include top directory:

1: Im in /home/user and Im trying to tar /home/user/public_html
I used:
tar -zcvf try.ta.gz public_html/
2:
user@alpha [~]# ls -al public_html/
total 680
drwxr-xr-x 28 user nobody 4096 Dec 12 12:36 ./
drwx--x--x 20 user user 4096 Dec 12 13:29 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 4898 Feb 12 2013 .htaccess
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 4600 Apr 3 2012 .htaccess.sample
drwxr-xr-x 3 user user 4096 Nov 30 2012 .idea/
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 10679 Apr 3 2012 LICENSE.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 10410 Apr 3 2012 LICENSE.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 10421 Apr 3 2012 LICENSE_AFL.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 436921 Apr 3 2012 RELEASE_NOTES.txt
drwxr-xr-x 6 user user 4096 Nov 30 2012 app/
drwxr-xr-x 5 user user 4096 Nov 30 2012 awstats-7.0/
drwxr-xr-x 2 user user 4096 Oct 31 2012 cgi-bin/
drwxr-xr-x 2 user user 4096 Apr 9 2013 correo/
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 1606 Apr 3 2012 cron.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 642 Apr 3 2012 cron.sh
drwxr-xr-x 2 user user 4096 Nov 30 2012 dataBaseScript/
drwxr-xr-x 3 user user 4096 Aug 22 08:51 dev/
3:
(Last lines)
public_html/var/minifycache/minify_e5e26b022e209a3a6c7f5fd549624af2
public_html/var/minifycache/minify_be3ccb4ca8cedaef4a7311da2da6fe79.gz
public_html/var/minifycache/minify_cb8b071c6a5b8329ba7b2a860b05e348.gz
public_html/var/minifycache/minify_46531ab44a2eab68d009f42339a46027
public_html/var/minifycache/minify_18d81ac9b5dc0d83eb7e3fd40d0a4945.gz
public_html/var/minifycache/minify_54d7427a3af286b5392aece87c89e0fd
public_html/var/minifycache/minify_5c4da8fa3d19816bd3c480a49fc3883d.gz
public_html/var/.htaccess
public_html/includes/
public_html/includes/config.php
public_html/includes/.htaccess
public_html/LICENSE.txt

I open the file and all I see inside is "try.ta"

Assuming the above is the output of tar tf try.ta.gz: It seems to be working perfectly.

Explain a bit more what you are trying to do:
- The tar tf ... command seems to be showing everything, tar xf ... would extract everything.

You are using tar, right?

??? What ???

The command tar compresses/archives the file into one

The content of the tar file is correct, as shown, in post #9, by the tar tf try.ta.gz command.

How are you trying to open the tar file? Which command? Which options? Are you using the tar command or some other command?

Provide info, I'm not a psychic.

Then save tar file somewhere else.
How did you open 'try.ta.gz'? In the screenshot you provided, the compressed file name has space inbetween (MS Win style). While compressing with tar did you give name with space inbetween and no quotes around it?

Im sorry, I was just confused because I felt I was being insulted without reason.

I open the tar file with WinRAR and thats what I see as its contents.

Im sorry for not giving enough information.

WinRAR is a windows specific program. I'm not able to help you with that (maybe some other member can).