tar error

monkeyjiann · 01-31-2002, 01:14 AM

i get this error with trying to tar -zxvf

gzip: stdin: not in gzip format
tar: Child returened status 1
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

could someone tell me what this means?
thx in advance

dorward · 01-31-2002, 02:53 AM

Its fairly self explanitory.

> gzip: stdin: not in gzip format

Its not a gzipped file

> tar: Child returened status 1

This is the only tricky bit. Any exit status apart from "0" is "exited non-standardly, i.e. with an error".

> tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

There was an error, lets stop here and let the user get the command right.

elist · 01-31-2002, 03:06 AM

Along the same lines, can you tell me why we can't do:
>tar -zxvf *.gz
to gunzip and untar all the tar.gz files in a directory?

dorward · 01-31-2002, 03:13 AM

Becuase that expands to

tar xvzf file.tar.gz otherfile.tar.gz

and tar only accepts one file as input.

Try:

for x in *.gz; do tar xvzf $x; done

acid_kewpie · 01-31-2002, 03:57 AM

the chances are that althuogh it's called .tar.gz it's only actually a tar file. Programmers sem to be getting lazy and not gzipping their files...

linuxcool · 01-31-2002, 05:42 PM

Try running file <filename> and see if it can tell you what type of file it is.

DavidPhillips · 02-01-2002, 01:43 AM

Netscape unzips files when it downloads them but does not rename them

rename it to file.tar