bad file created

newio · 02-15-2007, 10:42 PM

Hi All,

Im managed to do one of those one-in-a-million stupid things. I tried to use:

tar -cvf --compress appbackup .kde .local

to backup some of my stuff. Unfortunatly, tar used "--compress" as the name of the file to create, rather then an option.

Can anyone correct my usage of tar so i can compress it as it goes?

wjevans_7d1@yahoo.co · 02-15-2007, 10:47 PM

"-cvf" is shorthand for "-c -v -f". -f means "the following is the output filename". So you can move the --compress before all that:

Code:

tar --compress -cvf appbackup .kde .local

You can get rid of the file named "--compress" as follows:

Code:

rm -- --compress

Hope this helps.

Matir · 02-15-2007, 10:49 PM

I would use 'gzip' or 'bzip2' support rather than compress to begin with. In any case, tar ALWAYS uses whatever comes immediately after 'f' for the filename.

Gzip compression:

Code:

tar czvf appbackup.tar.gz .kde .local

For bzip2, replace the 'z' with j.

newio · 02-15-2007, 11:30 PM

thankx all. worked a treat :-)