How do I decompress and desarchive multiple .tar.gz files to a single directory?

Baldorg · 11-25-2003, 09:25 PM

I have downloaded a huge load of gkrellm skins and I want to unpack them to their respective directories? How do I do this? I check the manual pages but they are pretty arcane and elusive so I didn't bother cracking my brain in half to even try understanding it....I also checked around but nowone explained this. I also want to run the command in the background, I need to type & before it, right? example:

[root] $ & tar xv......

Right?

dkaplowitz · 11-25-2003, 09:37 PM

I've had limited success using wildcards.

Can you try something like:

Code:

tar -zxvf *.tar.gz

?

Not sure if that'll work for you.

Baldorg · 11-26-2003, 04:07 PM

What if I want to extract to an existing directory?

Tinkster · 11-26-2003, 04:16 PM

find -iname "*<common bit of skins names*" -exec tar xv[jz]f {} -c <target directory> \;

Cheers,
Tink

Baldorg · 11-26-2003, 05:14 PM

I get:

find: missing argument to `-exec'

Tinkster · 11-26-2003, 05:17 PM

Copy & paste your exact commandline?

Cheers,
Tink

dkaplowitz · 11-27-2003, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Baldorg
I get:

find: missing argument to `-exec'

Give the exact command you entered to get this error.

Tinkster · 11-27-2003, 12:42 PM

*sigh*

You're supposed to replace a few things in
that, mate ...

Code:

find -iname "*<common bit of skins names>*" -exec tar xv[jz]f {} -C <target directory> \;
              ^-------replace-----------^               ^--^        ^----replace-----^
                                                         | 
                                                         | -choose relevant compression method
                                                            and omit []

Also make sure there's a space between {} and \;
This is the most likely cause of the error message you
saw....

Cheers,
Tink