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In computing, tar is a computer software utility for collecting many files into one archive file, often referred to as a tarball, for distribution or backup purposes. The name is derived from "tape archive", as it was originally developed to write data to sequential I/O devices with no file system of their own, such as devices that use magnetic tape.
Archiving various uncompressed files via tar and then compressing yields a compressed archive: a .tar.gz file – this is solid compression. A rough graphical representation. In this example, three files each have a common part with the same information, a unique part with information not in the other files, and an "air" part with low-entropy ...
pax is an archiving utility available for various operating systems and defined since 1995. [1] Rather than sort out the incompatible options that have crept up between tar and cpio, along with their implementations across various versions of Unix, the IEEE designed a new archive utility pax that could support various archive formats with useful options from both archivers.
If the archive is compressed, libarchive also detects and handles compression formats before evaluating the archive. [6] libarchive is designed to minimize the copying of data internally for optimal performance. [7] Supported archive formats: [8] 7z – read and write; ar – read and write; cab – read only; cpio – read and write; ISO9660 ...
A single file container/archive that can be reconstructed even after total loss of file system structures. .tar application/x-tar Tape archive: Unix-like A common archive format used on Unix-like systems. Generally used in conjunction with compressors such as gzip, bzip2, compress or xz to create .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.Z or tar.xz files.
Archive files are particularly useful in that they store file system data and metadata within the contents of a particular file, and thus can be stored on systems or sent over channels that do not support the file system in question, only file contents – examples include sending a directory structure over email, files with names unsupported on the target file system due to length or ...
(The tar program in its own does not compress; it just stores multiple files within one tape archive.) Files can be returned to their original state using uncompress. The usual action of uncompress is not merely to create an uncompressed copy of the file, but also to restore the timestamp and other attributes of the compressed file.
Per-file compression with gzip, bzip2, lzo, xz or lzma (as opposed to compressing the whole archive). An individual can choose not to compress already compressed files based on their filename suffix. Fast-extracting of files from anywhere in the archive; Fast listing of archive contents through saving the catalogue of files in the archive