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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.
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.
gzip is a file format and a software application used for file compression and decompression.The program was created by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler as a free software replacement for the compress program used in early Unix systems, and intended for use by GNU (from which the "g" of gzip is derived).
There are also programs that create self-extracting archives on Unix as shell scripts, which utilize programs like tar and gzip (which must be present in the destination system). [citation needed] Others (like 7-Zip or RAR) can create self-extracting archives as regular executables in ELF format.
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.
For example, archiving a collection of files with tar and then compressing the resulting archive file with gzip results a file with .tar.gz extension. This approach has two goals: It follows the Unix philosophy that each program should accomplish a single task to perfection, as opposed to attempting to accomplish everything with one tool. As ...
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
Information about what archive formats the archivers [a] can write and create. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the archiver or extensions that provide such functionality. Note that gzip, bzip2 and xz are compression formats rather than archive formats.