Option Summary (GNU tar 1.35)

#### 3.4.2 `tar` Options

`--absolute-names`
`-P`

  Normally when creating an archive, `tar` strips an initial ‘`/`’ from member names, and when extracting from an archive `tar` treats names specially if they have initial ‘`/`’ or internal ‘`..`’. This option disables that behavior. See Absolute File Names.

`--acls`

  Enable POSIX ACLs support. See acls.

`--after-date`

  (See `--newer`, see Operating Only on New Files)

`--anchored`

  A pattern must match an initial subsequence of the name’s components. See Controlling Pattern-Matching.

`--atime-preserve`
`--atime-preserve=replace`
`--atime-preserve=system`

  Attempt to preserve the access time of files when reading them. This option currently is effective only on files that you own, unless you have superuser privileges.

  `--atime-preserve=replace` remembers the access time of a file before reading it, and then restores the access time afterwards. This may cause problems if other programs are reading the file at the same time, as the times of their accesses will be lost. On most platforms restoring the access time also requires `tar` to restore the data modification time too, so this option may also cause problems if other programs are writing the file at the same time (`tar` attempts to detect this situation, but cannot do so reliably due to race conditions). Worse, on most platforms restoring the access time also updates the status change time, which means that this option is incompatible with incremental backups.

  `--atime-preserve=system` avoids changing time stamps on files, without interfering with time stamp updates caused by other programs, so it works better with incremental backups. However, it requires a special `O_NOATIME` option from the underlying operating and file system implementation, and it also requires that searching directories does not update their access times. As of this writing (November 2005) this works only with Linux, and only with Linux kernels 2.6.8 and later. Worse, there is currently no reliable way to know whether this feature actually works. Sometimes `tar` knows that it does not work, and if you use `--atime-preserve=system` then `tar` complains and exits right away. But other times `tar` might think that the option works when it actually does not.

  Currently `--atime-preserve` with no operand defaults to `--atime-preserve=replace`, but this may change in the future as support for `--atime-preserve=system` improves.

  If your operating or file system does not support `--atime-preserve=system`, you might be able to preserve access times reliably by using the `mount` command. For example, you can mount the file system read-only, or access the file system via a read-only loopback mount, or use the ‘`noatime`’ mount option available on some systems. However, mounting typically requires superuser privileges and can be a pain to manage.

`--auto-compress`
`-a`

  During a `--create` operation, enables automatic compressed format recognition based on the archive suffix. The effect of this option is cancelled by `--no-auto-compress`. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

`--backup=backup-type`

  Rather than deleting files from the file system, `tar` will back them up using simple or numbered backups, depending upon backup-type. See Backup options.

`--block-number`
`-R`

  With this option present, `tar` prints error messages for read errors with the block number in the archive file. See block-number.

`--blocking-factor=blocking`
`-b blocking`

  Sets the blocking factor `tar` uses to blocking x 512 bytes per record. See The Blocking Factor of an Archive.

`--bzip2`
`-j`

  This option tells `tar` to read or write archives through `bzip2`. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

`--check-device`

  Check device numbers when creating a list of modified files for incremental archiving. This is the default. See device numbers, for a detailed description.

`--checkpoint[=number]`

  This option directs `tar` to print periodic checkpoint messages as it reads through the archive. It is intended for when you want a visual indication that `tar` is still running, but don’t want to see `--verbose` output. You can also instruct `tar` to execute a list of actions on each checkpoint, see `--checkpoint-action` below. For a detailed description, see Checkpoints.

`--checkpoint-action=action`

  Instruct `tar` to execute an action upon hitting a breakpoint. Here we give only a brief outline. See Checkpoints, for a complete description.

  The action argument can be one of the following:

  bell

    Produce an audible bell on the console.

  dot
  .

    Print a single dot on the standard listing stream.

  echo

    Display a textual message on the standard error, with the status and number of the checkpoint. This is the default.

  echo=string

    Display string on the standard error. Before output, the string is subject to meta-character expansion.

  exec=command

    Execute the given command.

  sleep=time

    Wait for time seconds.

  ttyout=string

    Output string on the current console (`/dev/tty`).

  totals

    Print statistics (see see totals).

  wait=signo

    Wait for signal signo.

  Several `--checkpoint-action` options can be specified. The supplied actions will be executed in order of their appearance in the command line.

  Using `--checkpoint-action` without `--checkpoint` assumes default checkpoint frequency of one checkpoint per 10 records.

`--check-links`
`-l`

  If this option was given, `tar` will check the number of links dumped for each processed file. If this number does not match the total number of hard links for the file, a warning message will be output 5.

  See Hard Links.

`--compress`
`--uncompress`
`-Z`

  `tar` will use the `compress` program when reading or writing the archive. This allows you to directly act on archives while saving space. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

`--clamp-mtime`

  (See `--mtime`.)

`--confirmation`

  (See `--interactive`.) See Asking for Confirmation During Operations.

`--delay-directory-restore`

  Delay setting modification times and permissions of extracted directories until the end of extraction. See Directory Modification Times and Permissions.

`--dereference`
`-h`

  When reading or writing a file to be archived, `tar` accesses the file that a symbolic link points to, rather than the symlink itself. See Symbolic Links.

`--directory=dir`
`-C dir`

  When this option is specified, `tar` will change its current directory to dir before performing any operations. When this option is used during archive creation, it is order sensitive. See Changing the Working Directory.

`--exclude=pattern`

  When performing operations, `tar` will skip files that match pattern. See Excluding Some Files.

`--exclude-backups`

  Exclude backup and lock files. See exclude-backups.

`--exclude-from=file`
`-X file`

  Similar to `--exclude`, except `tar` will use the list of patterns in the file file. See Excluding Some Files.

`--exclude-caches`

  Exclude from dump any directory containing a valid cache directory tag file, but still dump the directory node and the tag file itself.

  See exclude-caches.

`--exclude-caches-under`

  Exclude from dump any directory containing a valid cache directory tag file, but still dump the directory node itself.

  See Excluding Some Files.

`--exclude-caches-all`

  Exclude from dump any directory containing a valid cache directory tag file. See Excluding Some Files.

`--exclude-ignore=file`

  Before dumping a directory, `tar` checks if it contains file. If so, exclusion patterns are read from this file. The patterns affect only the directory itself. See Excluding Some Files.

`--exclude-ignore-recursive=file`

  Before dumping a directory, `tar` checks if it contains file. If so, exclusion patterns are read from this file. The patterns affect the directory and all itssubdirectories. See Excluding Some Files.

`--exclude-tag=file`

  Exclude from dump any directory containing file named file, but dump the directory node and file itself. See exclude-tag.

`--exclude-tag-under=file`

  Exclude from dump the contents of any directory containing file named file, but dump the directory node itself. See exclude-tag-under.

`--exclude-tag-all=file`

  Exclude from dump any directory containing file named file. See exclude-tag-all.

`--exclude-vcs`

  Exclude from dump directories and files, that are internal for some widely used version control systems.

  See exclude-vcs.

`--exclude-vcs-ignores`

  Exclude files that match patterns read from VCS-specific ignore files. Supported files are: `.cvsignore`, `.gitignore`, `.bzrignore`, and `.hgignore`. The semantics of each file is the same as for the corresponding VCS, e.g. patterns read from `.gitignore` affect the directory and all its subdirectories. See exclude-vcs-ignores.

`--file=archive`
`-f archive`

  `tar` will use the file archive as the `tar` archive it performs operations on, rather than `tar`’s compilation dependent default. See The `--file` Option.

`--files-from=file`
`-T file`

  `tar` will use the contents of file as a list of archive members or files to operate on, in addition to those specified on the command-line. See Reading Names from a File.

`--force-local`

  Forces `tar` to interpret the file name given to `--file` as a local file, even if it looks like a remote tape drive name. See local and remote archives.

`--format=format`
`-H format`

  Selects output archive format. Format may be one of the following:

  ‘`v7`’

    Creates an archive that is compatible with Unix V7 `tar`.

  ‘`oldgnu`’

    Creates an archive that is compatible with GNU `tar` version 1.12 or earlier.

  ‘`gnu`’

    Creates archive in GNU tar 1.13 format. Basically it is the same as ‘`oldgnu`’ with the only difference in the way it handles long numeric fields.

  ‘`ustar`’

    Creates a POSIX.1-1988 compatible archive.

  ‘`posix`’

    Creates a POSIX.1-2001 archive.

  See Controlling the Archive Format, for a detailed discussion of these formats.

`--full-time`

  This option instructs `tar` to print file times to their full resolution. Usually this means 1-second resolution, but that depends on the underlying file system. The `--full-time` option takes effect only when detailed output (verbosity level 2 or higher) has been requested using the `--verbose` option, e.g., when listing or extracting archives:

      $ tar -t -v --full-time -f archive.tar

  or, when creating an archive:

      $ tar -c -vv --full-time -f archive.tar .

  Notice, thar when creating the archive you need to specify `--verbose` twice to get a detailed output (see The `--verbose` Option).

`--group=group`

  Files added to the `tar` archive will have a group ID of group, rather than the group from the source file. group can specify a symbolic name, or a numeric ID, or both as name:id. See Overriding File Metadata.

  Also see the `--group-map` option and comments for the `--owner=user` option.

`--group-map=file`

  Read owner group translation map from file. This option allows to translate only certain group names and/or UIDs. See Overriding File Metadata, for a detailed description. When used together with `--group` option, the latter affects only those files whose owner group is not listed in the file.

  This option does not affect extraction from archives.

`--gzip`
`--gunzip`
`--ungzip`
`-z`

  This option tells `tar` to read or write archives through `gzip`, allowing `tar` to directly operate on several kinds of compressed archives transparently. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

`--hard-dereference`

  When creating an archive, dereference hard links and store the files they refer to, instead of creating usual hard link members.

  See Hard Links.

`--help`
`-?`

  `tar` will print out a short message summarizing the operations and options to `tar` and exit. See GNU `tar` documentation.

`--hole-detection=method`

  Use method to detect holes in sparse files. This option implies `--sparse`. Valid methods are ‘`seek`’ and ‘`raw`’. Default is ‘`seek`’ with fallback to ‘`raw`’ when not applicable. See Archiving Sparse Files.

`--ignore-case`

  Ignore case when matching member or file names with patterns. See Controlling Pattern-Matching.

`--ignore-command-error`

  Ignore exit codes of subprocesses. See Writing to an External Program.

`--ignore-failed-read`

  Do not exit unsuccessfully merely because reading failed. See Ignore Failed Read.

`--ignore-zeros`
`-i`

  With this option, `tar` will ignore zeroed blocks in the archive, which normally signals EOF. This option also suppresses warnings about missing or incomplete zero blocks at the end of the archive. See Ignoring Blocks of Zeros.

`--incremental`
`-G`

  Informs `tar` that it is working with an old GNU-format incremental backup archive. It is intended primarily for backwards compatibility only. See Using `tar` to Perform Incremental Dumps, for a detailed discussion of incremental archives.

`--index-file=file`

  Send verbose output to file instead of to standard output.

`--info-script=command`
`--new-volume-script=command`
`-F command`

  When `tar` is performing multi-tape backups, command is run at the end of each tape. If it exits with nonzero status, `tar` fails immediately. See info-script, for a detailed discussion of this feature.

`--interactive`
`--confirmation`
`-w`

  Specifies that `tar` should ask the user for confirmation before performing potentially destructive options, such as overwriting files. See Asking for Confirmation During Operations.

`--keep-directory-symlink`

  This option changes the behavior of tar when it encounters a symlink with the same name as the directory that it is about to extract. By default, in this case tar would first remove the symlink and then proceed extracting the directory.

  The `--keep-directory-symlink` option disables this behavior and instructs tar to follow symlinks to directories when extracting from the archive.

  It is mainly intended to provide compatibility with the Slackware installation scripts.

`--keep-newer-files`

  Do not replace existing files that are newer than their archive copies when extracting files from an archive.

`--keep-old-files`
`-k`

  Do not overwrite existing files when extracting files from an archive. Return error if such files exist. See also --skip-old-files.

  See Keep Old Files.

`--label=name`
`-V name`

  When creating an archive, instructs `tar` to write name as a name record in the archive. When extracting or listing archives, `tar` will only operate on archives that have a label matching the pattern specified in name. See Tape Files.

`--level=n`

  Force incremental backup of level n. As of GNU `tar` version 1.35, the option `--level=0` truncates the snapshot file, thereby forcing the level 0 dump. Other values of n are effectively ignored. See --level=0, for details and examples.

  The use of this option is valid only in conjunction with the `--listed-incremental` option. See Using `tar` to Perform Incremental Dumps, for a detailed description.

`--listed-incremental=snapshot-file`
`-g snapshot-file`

  During a `--create` operation, specifies that the archive that `tar` creates is a new GNU-format incremental backup, using snapshot-file to determine which files to backup. With other operations, informs `tar` that the archive is in incremental format. See Using `tar` to Perform Incremental Dumps.

`--lzip`

  This option tells `tar` to read or write archives through `lzip`. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

`--lzma`

  This option tells `tar` to read or write archives through `lzma`. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

`--lzop`

  This option tells `tar` to read or write archives through `lzop`. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

`--mode=permissions`

  When adding files to an archive, `tar` will use permissions for the archive members, rather than the permissions from the files. permissions can be specified either as an octal number or as symbolic permissions, like with `chmod`. See Overriding File Metadata.

`--mtime=date`

  When adding files to an archive, `tar` will use date as the modification time of members when creating archives, instead of their actual modification times. The value of date can be either a textual date representation (see Date input formats) or a name of the existing file, starting with ‘`/`’ or ‘`.`’. In the latter case, the modification time of that file is used. See Overriding File Metadata.

  When `--clamp-mtime` is also specified, files with modification times earlier than date will retain their actual modification times, and date will only be used for files whose modification times are later than date.

`--multi-volume`
`-M`

  Informs `tar` that it should create or otherwise operate on a multi-volume `tar` archive. See Using Multiple Tapes.

`--new-volume-script`

  (see `--info-script`)

`--newer=date`
`--after-date=date`
`-N`

  When creating an archive, `tar` will only add files that have changed since date. If date begins with ‘`/`’ or ‘`.`’, it is taken to be the name of a file whose data modification time specifies the date. See Operating Only on New Files.

`--newer-mtime=date`

  Like `--newer`, but add only files whose contents have changed (as opposed to just `--newer`, which will also back up files for which any status information has changed). See Operating Only on New Files.

`--no-acls`

  Disable the POSIX ACLs support. See acls.

`--no-anchored`

  An exclude pattern can match any subsequence of the name’s components. See Controlling Pattern-Matching.

`--no-auto-compress`

  Disables automatic compressed format recognition based on the archive suffix. See --auto-compress. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

`--no-check-device`

  Do not check device numbers when creating a list of modified files for incremental archiving. See device numbers, for a detailed description.

`--no-delay-directory-restore`

  Modification times and permissions of extracted directories are set when all files from this directory have been extracted. This is the default. See Directory Modification Times and Permissions.

`--no-ignore-case`

  Use case-sensitive matching. See Controlling Pattern-Matching.

`--no-ignore-command-error`

  Print warnings about subprocesses that terminated with a nonzero exit code. See Writing to an External Program.

`--no-null`

  If the `--null` option was given previously, this option cancels its effect, so that any following `--files-from` options will expect their file lists to be newline-terminated.

`--no-overwrite-dir`

  Preserve metadata of existing directories when extracting files from an archive. See Overwrite Old Files.

`--no-quote-chars=string`

  Remove characters listed in string from the list of quoted characters set by the previous `--quote-chars` option (see Quoting Member Names).

`--no-recursion`

  With this option, `tar` will not recurse into directories. See Descending into Directories.

`--no-same-owner`
`-o`

  When extracting an archive, do not attempt to preserve the owner specified in the `tar` archive. This the default behavior for ordinary users.

`--no-same-permissions`

  When extracting an archive, subtract the user’s umask from files from the permissions specified in the archive. This is the default behavior for ordinary users.

`--no-seek`

  The archive media does not support seeks to arbitrary locations. Usually `tar` determines automatically whether the archive can be seeked or not. Use this option to disable this mechanism.

`--no-selinux`

  Disable SELinux context support. See SELinux.

`--no-unquote`

  Treat all input file or member names literally, do not interpret escape sequences. See input name quoting.

`--no-verbatim-files-from`

  Instructs GNU `tar` to treat each line read from a file list as if it were supplied in the command line. I.e., leading and trailing whitespace is removed and, if the result begins with a dash, it is treated as a GNU `tar` command line option.

  This is default behavior. This option is provided as a way to restore it after `--verbatim-files-from` option.

  It is implied by the `--no-null` option.

  See no-verbatim-files-from.

`--no-wildcards`

  Do not use wildcards. See Controlling Pattern-Matching.

`--no-wildcards-match-slash`

  Wildcards do not match ‘`/`’. See Controlling Pattern-Matching.

`--no-xattrs`

  Disable extended attributes support. See xattrs.

`--null`

  When `tar` is using the `--files-from` option, this option instructs `tar` to expect file names terminated with NUL, and to process file names verbatim.

  This means that `tar` correctly works with file names that contain newlines or begin with a dash.

  See `NUL`-Terminated File Names.

  See also verbatim-files-from.

`--numeric-owner`

  This option will notify `tar` that it should use numeric user and group IDs when creating a `tar` file, rather than names. See Handling File Attributes.

`-o`

  The function of this option depends on the action `tar` is performing. When extracting files, `-o` is a synonym for `--no-same-owner`, i.e., it prevents `tar` from restoring ownership of files being extracted.

  When creating an archive, it is a synonym for `--old-archive`. This behavior is for compatibility with previous versions of GNU `tar`, and will be removed in future releases.

  See Changes, for more information.

`--occurrence[=number]`

  This option can be used in conjunction with one of the subcommands `--delete`, `--diff`, `--extract` or `--list` when a list of files is given either on the command line or via `-T` option.

  This option instructs `tar` to process only the numberth occurrence of each named file. Number defaults to 1, so

      tar -x -f archive.tar --occurrence filename

  will extract the first occurrence of the member `filename` from `archive.tar` and will terminate without scanning to the end of the archive.

`--old-archive`

  Synonym for `--format=v7`.

`--one-file-system`

  Used when creating an archive. Prevents `tar` from recursing into directories that are on different file systems from the current directory.

`--one-top-level[=dir]`

  Tells `tar` to create a new directory beneath the extraction directory (or the one passed to `-C`) and use it to guard against tarbombs. In the absence of dir argument, the name of the new directory will be equal to the base name of the archive (file name minus the archive suffix, if recognized). Any member names that do not begin with that directory name (after transformations from `--transform` and `--strip-components`) will be prefixed with it. Recognized file name suffixes are ‘`.tar`’, and any compression suffixes recognizable by See --auto-compress.

`--overwrite`

  Overwrite existing files and directory metadata when extracting files from an archive. See Overwrite Old Files.

`--overwrite-dir`

  Overwrite the metadata of existing directories when extracting files from an archive. See Overwrite Old Files.

`--owner=user`

  Specifies that `tar` should use user as the owner of members when creating archives, instead of the user associated with the source file. user can specify a symbolic name, or a numeric ID, or both as name:id. See Overriding File Metadata.

  This option does not affect extraction from archives. See also `--owner-map`, below.

`--owner-map=file`

  Read owner translation map from file. This option allows to translate only certain owner names or UIDs. See Overriding File Metadata, for a detailed description. When used together with `--owner` option, the latter affects only those files whose owner is not listed in the file.

  This option does not affect extraction from archives.

`--pax-option=keyword-list`

  This option enables creation of the archive in POSIX.1-2001 format (see GNU `tar` and POSIX `tar`) and modifies the way `tar` handles the extended header keywords. Keyword-list is a comma-separated list of keyword options. See Controlling Extended Header Keywords, for a detailed discussion.

`--portability`
`--old-archive`

  Synonym for `--format=v7`.

`--posix`

  Same as `--format=posix`.

`--preserve-order`

  (See `--same-order`; see Same Order.)

`--preserve-permissions`
`--same-permissions`
`-p`

  When `tar` is extracting an archive, it normally subtracts the users’ umask from the permissions specified in the archive and uses that number as the permissions to create the destination file. Specifying this option instructs `tar` that it should use the permissions directly from the archive. See Setting Access Permissions.

`--quote-chars=string`

  Always quote characters from string, even if the selected quoting style would not quote them (see Quoting Member Names).

`--quoting-style=style`

  Set quoting style to use when printing member and file names (see Quoting Member Names). Valid style values are: `literal`, `shell`, `shell-always`, `c`, `escape`, `locale`, and `clocale`. Default quoting style is `escape`, unless overridden while configuring the package.

`--read-full-records`
`-B`

  Specifies that `tar` should reblock its input, for reading from pipes on systems with buggy implementations. See Options to Help Read Archives.

`--record-size=size[suf]`

  Instructs `tar` to use size bytes per record when accessing the archive. The argument can be suffixed with a size suffix, e.g. `--record-size=10K` for 10 Kilobytes. See Table 9.1, for a list of valid suffixes. See The Blocking Factor of an Archive, for a detailed description of this option.

`--recursion`

  With this option, `tar` recurses into directories (default). See Descending into Directories.

`--recursive-unlink`

  Remove existing directory hierarchies before extracting directories of the same name from the archive. See Recursive Unlink.

`--remove-files`

  Directs `tar` to remove the source file from the file system after appending it to an archive. See Removing Files.

`--restrict`

  Disable use of some potentially harmful `tar` options. Currently this option disables shell invocation from multi-volume menu (see Using Multiple Tapes).

`--rmt-command=cmd`

  Notifies `tar` that it should use cmd instead of the default `/usr/libexec/rmt` (see Remote Tape Server).

`--rsh-command=cmd`

  Notifies `tar` that is should use cmd to communicate with remote devices. See Device Selection and Switching.

`--same-order`
`--preserve-order`
`-s`

  This option is an optimization for `tar` when running on machines with small amounts of memory. It informs `tar` that the list of file arguments has already been sorted to match the order of files in the archive. See Same Order.

`--same-owner`

  When extracting an archive, `tar` will attempt to preserve the owner specified in the `tar` archive with this option present. This is the default behavior for the superuser; this option has an effect only for ordinary users. See Handling File Attributes.

`--same-permissions`

  (See `--preserve-permissions`; see Setting Access Permissions.)

`--seek`
`-n`

  Assume that the archive media supports seeks to arbitrary locations. Usually `tar` determines automatically whether the archive can be seeked or not. This option is intended for use in cases when such recognition fails. It takes effect only if the archive is open for reading (e.g. with `--list` or `--extract` options).

`--selinux`

  Enable the SELinux context support. See selinux.

`--show-defaults`

  Displays the default options used by `tar` and exits successfully. This option is intended for use in shell scripts. Here is an example of what you can see using this option:

      $ tar --show-defaults
      --format=gnu -f- -b20 --quoting-style=escape
      --rmt-command=/usr/libexec/rmt --rsh-command=/usr/bin/rsh

  Notice, that this option outputs only one line. The example output above has been split to fit page boundaries. See Obtaining GNU `tar` default values.

`--show-omitted-dirs`

  Instructs `tar` to mention the directories it is skipping when operating on a `tar` archive. See show-omitted-dirs.

`--show-snapshot-field-ranges`

  Displays the range of values allowed by this version of `tar` for each field in the snapshot file, then exits successfully. See Format of the Incremental Snapshot Files.

`--show-transformed-names`
`--show-stored-names`

  Display file or member names after applying any transformations (see Modifying File and Member Names). In particular, when used in conjunction with one of the archive creation operations it instructs `tar` to list the member names stored in the archive, as opposed to the actual file names. See listing member and file names.

`--skip-old-files`

  Do not overwrite existing files when extracting files from an archive. See Keep Old Files.

  This option differs from `--keep-old-files` in that it does not treat such files as an error, instead it just silently avoids overwriting them.

  The `--warning=existing-file` option can be used together with this option to produce warning messages about existing old files (see Controlling Warning Messages).

`--sort=order`

  Specify the directory sorting order when reading directories. Order may be one of the following:

  ‘`none`’

    No directory sorting is performed. This is the default.

  ‘`name`’

    Sort the directory entries on name. The operating system may deliver directory entries in a more or less random order, and sorting them makes archive creation reproducible.

  ‘`inode`’

    Sort the directory entries on inode number. Sorting directories on inode number may reduce the amount of disk seek operations when creating an archive for some file systems.

`--sparse`
`-S`

  Invokes a GNU extension when adding files to an archive that handles sparse files efficiently. See Archiving Sparse Files.

`--sparse-version=version`

  Specifies the format version to use when archiving sparse files. Implies `--sparse`. See Archiving Sparse Files. For the description of the supported sparse formats, See Storing Sparse Files.

`--starting-file=name`
`-K name`

  This option affects extraction only; `tar` will skip extracting files in the archive until it finds one that matches name. See Coping with Scarce Resources.

`--strip-components=number`

  Strip given number of leading components from file names before extraction. For example, if archive `archive.tar` contained `/some/file/name`, then running

      tar --extract --file archive.tar --strip-components=2

  would extract this file to file `name`.

  See Modifying File and Member Names.

`--suffix=suffix`

  Alters the suffix `tar` uses when backing up files from the default ‘`~`’. See Backup options.

`--tape-length=num[suf]`
`-L num[suf]`

  Specifies the length of tapes that `tar` is writing as being num x 1024 bytes long. If optional suf is given, it specifies a multiplicative factor to be used instead of 1024. For example, ‘`-L2M`’ means 2 megabytes. See Table 9.1, for a list of allowed suffixes. See Using Multiple Tapes, for a detailed discussion of this option.

`--test-label`

  Reads the volume label. If an argument is specified, test whether it matches the volume label. See --test-label option.

`--to-command=command`

  During extraction `tar` will pipe extracted files to the standard input of command. See Writing to an External Program.

`--to-stdout`
`-O`

  During extraction, `tar` will extract files to stdout rather than to the file system. See Writing to Standard Output.

`--totals[=signo]`

  Displays the total number of bytes transferred when processing an archive. If an argument is given, these data are displayed on request, when signal signo is delivered to `tar`. See totals.

`--touch`
`-m`

  Sets the data modification time of extracted files to the extraction time, rather than the data modification time stored in the archive. See Setting Data Modification Times.

`--transform=sed-expr`
`--xform=sed-expr`

  Transform file or member names using `sed` replacement expression sed-expr. For example,

      $ tar cf archive.tar --transform 's,^\./,usr/,' .

  will add to `archive` files from the current working directory, replacing initial ‘`./`’ prefix with ‘`usr/`’. For the detailed discussion, See Modifying File and Member Names.

  To see transformed member names in verbose listings, use `--show-transformed-names` option (see show-transformed-names).

`--uncompress`

  (See `--compress`, see Creating and Reading Compressed Archives)

`--ungzip`

  (See `--gzip`, see Creating and Reading Compressed Archives)

`--unlink-first`
`-U`

  Directs `tar` to remove the corresponding file from the file system before extracting it from the archive. See Unlink First.

`--unquote`

  Enable unquoting input file or member names (default). See input name quoting.

`--use-compress-program=prog`
`-I=prog`

  Instructs `tar` to access the archive through prog, which is presumed to be a compression program of some sort. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

`--utc`

  Display file modification dates in UTC. This option implies `--verbose`.

`--verbatim-files-from`

  Instructs GNU `tar` to treat each line read from a file list as a file name, even if it starts with a dash.

  File lists are supplied with the `--files-from` (`-T`) option. By default, each line read from a file list is first trimmed off the leading and trailing whitespace and, if the result begins with a dash, it is treated as a GNU `tar` command line option.

  Use the `--verbatim-files-from` option to disable this special handling. This facilitates the use of `tar` with file lists created by `file` command.

  This option affects all `--files-from` options that occur after it in the command line. Its effect is reverted by the `--no-verbatim-files-from` option.

  This option is implied by the `--null` option.

  See verbatim-files-from.

`--verbose`
`-v`

  Specifies that `tar` should be more verbose about the operations it is performing. This option can be specified multiple times for some operations to increase the amount of information displayed. See Checking `tar` progress.

`--verify`
`-W`

  Verifies that the archive was correctly written when creating an archive. See Verifying Data as It is Stored.

`--version`

  Print information about the program’s name, version, origin and legal status, all on standard output, and then exit successfully. See GNU `tar` documentation.

`--volno-file=file`

  Used in conjunction with `--multi-volume`. `tar` will keep track of which volume of a multi-volume archive it is working in file. See volno-file.

`--warning=keyword`

  Enable or disable warning messages identified by keyword. The messages are suppressed if keyword is prefixed with ‘`no-`’. See Controlling Warning Messages.

`--wildcards`

  Use wildcards when matching member names with patterns. See Controlling Pattern-Matching.

`--wildcards-match-slash`

  Wildcards match ‘`/`’. See Controlling Pattern-Matching.

`--xattrs`

  Enable extended attributes support. See xattrs.

`--xattrs-exclude=pattern`

  Specify exclude pattern for xattr keys. See xattrs-exclude.

`--xattrs-include=pattern.`

  Specify include pattern for xattr keys. pattern is a globbing pattern, e.g. ‘`--xattrs-include='user.*'`’ to include only attributes from the user namespace. See xattrs-include.

`--xz`
`-J`

  Use `xz` for compressing or decompressing the archives. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

`--zstd`

  Use `zstd` for compressing or decompressing the archives. See Creating and Reading Compressed Archives.

#### Footnotes

##### (5)

Earlier versions of GNU `tar` understood `-l` as a synonym for `--one-file-system`. The current semantics, which complies to UNIX98, was introduced with version 1.15.91. See Changes, for more information.