Problem with properly creating a tar archive
 

Hi all,

In a bash script of mine I create a tar archive from a file which contains
absolute paths to the files the archive should contain(supplied via the
--files-from argument). The lines is of the type /foo/bar/a, /foo/bar/b etc.
- all the specified files is in one folder.
The problem is, when I untar the archive the whole directory structure is
created, foo/bar/ and then the files - I just want all the files in the
toplevel of the archive. Any ideas? Suggestions highly appreciated.

BTW, does anyone know a good mailinglist/forum for tricky hardware questions?
(I don't want to go for LKML)


Cheers,

________________Frans

You want a flat tar archive, right - one where the directory structure does not exist?

Yupp! :)

Frans

What you want doesn't exist - the only workaround is to create the tarball with the -P switch to prevent the stripping of leading '/' characters, and then unnzipping the tarball in the parent directory of the directory structure that you want backed up.

Ok. But there must be a solution to my problem:

I have N files spread out over the place, and I want to collect them together in the toplevel of the tar file. (and the files are in different places, some are in /foo/bar/ othere's in /foo/foo)

Cheers,
Frans

There is indeed a way. You will probably have to do some scripting, but it isn't that hard.

Lets start with a file, file.lst, that contains all of the fully qualified file names you want to tar:
Something like this should do it.

The tar cvf creates the tar file tar rvf appends to that tar file. Doing the cd inside of parens spawns a separate shell and when it exits you are back in the same place.

Hope this helps!