Is it possible to unpack a *.tar into a specific directory

whammack · 01-29-2007, 02:37 PM

When I unpack my *.tar files it recreates the directory in which the files were orginally stored. I need them to unpack in a different directory. I've tried the -C switch, but these doesn't seem to work -- I find the man page unclear, so perhaps I'm doing this wrong. Any suggestions?

kotnik · 01-29-2007, 02:49 PM

Yeah, the -C switch will do it, but maybe you've used it wrong. Try this:

tar xf archive.tar -C /tmp

whammack · 01-29-2007, 03:00 PM

Yeah, that's what I did. It still adds all the other subdirectories. E.g., if the files were originally in /home/bill/junk the the -C /tmp option puts them in /tmp/home/bill/junk -- what I want is for them to just be in /tmp. (I may well be asking tar to do something it cannot, and should not do!)

jonnycando · 01-29-2007, 06:04 PM

I think the point of TAR is to unroll it's tarballs the way they were rolled up. It usually being somewhat important that the tarball was created with the original diretories rolled into it. That said, I do think Gnome's "File Roller" utility does give the option of not recreating directories, so that all contents of the tarball spill out into the specified directory,