bash: how to tar without absolute path?

xushi · 05-20-2007, 07:53 AM

Hi all,

What i need to do is to backup many folders, but the resulting archives' names and content should be just the directory name, and not the full path.. I can't figure out how to do so.

For example, here is part of my script that does the task,

Code:

BACKUP="/var/www/localhost/htdocs /home/xushi/Work /home/anotheruser/myfolder /etc/apache2"
DATE=`date +%F`
DEST="/home/xushi/backup/"
TARGET=$DEST$DATE/
 
# tar all the folders.
for i in $BACKUP
do
        NF=$( echo $i | sed 's/\//_/g')-"$DATE".tar.bz2
        
        echo Backing up $i to $TARGET$NF
        echo tar -cjf $TARGET$NF $i
done
echo "Done."

But the resulting filenames are (for example) like _var_www_localhost_htdocs-2007-05-20.tar.bz2 and the content is in /var/www/localhost/htdocs/ instead of just htdocs-2007-05-20.tar.bz2 and htdocs/ respectivly

What am i missing? I was told that i need to use -C, but i can't figure out how/where to use it..

I appreciate the help.

Thanks.

makyo · 05-20-2007, 09:13 AM

Hi.

Here's a short example of tar using relative paths, e.g. ".", and changing to a directory with "-C":

Code:

#!/bin/sh

# @(#) s1       Demonstrate tar with relative paths in different directories.

DIRS="./d1 ./d1/d2"

# Remove debris from previous runs, create fresh test files.

rm -rf d1

mkdir -p $DIRS
touch d1/d2/file1 d1/d2/file2

echo
echo " Contents of test directory:"
ls -FR d1

echo
echo " Tell tar to Change to a directory and tar from \".\""
echo
tar cvf my-tar -C d1/d2 .

echo
echo " Contents of tar:"
echo
tar tvf my-tar

exit 0

which produces:

Code:

% ./s1

 Contents of test directory:
d1:
d2/

d1/d2:
file1
file2

 Tell tar to Change to a directory and tar from "."

./
./file1
./file2

 Contents of tar:

drwxr-xr-x makyo/makyo   0 2007-05-20 09:08:57 ./
-rw-r--r-- makyo/makyo   0 2007-05-20 09:08:57 ./file1
-rw-r--r-- makyo/makyo   0 2007-05-20 09:08:57 ./file2

Note well that the final parameter on the tar is a dot.

If you want the directory name, e.g. "./d2/file1", provide the path to "-C" one level up: "-C d1".

See man tar and info tar for details. Best wishes ... cheers, makyo

( edit 1: add, clarify )