How to tar all files in a directory into one compressed file

[UnixMan]

Sometimes, for instance for the purposes of a backup, it is useful to 'archive' all files in a directory into one big file, which can then be copied onto an external harddrive, DVD, etc. Better still if the 'one big file' can be compressed at the same time, to save space.

If you have a directory named 'data' within the current working directory, use:

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tar -cvzf data.tar.gz data/

The tar options in use are as follows:

-c : create an archive
-v : verbose - print filenames as they are done
-z : zip - compress the archive
-f : the filename of the resulting archive, which in this case will be data.tar.gz. The 'tar' extension indicates that it's a 'tar' archive, and the 'gz' indicates that it's compressed.

To restore an archive, go to the directory where you want the data to be restored to, and use:

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tar -xvzf data.tar.gz newdata/

The data will be extracted (the -x option) into the specified directory. Be careful to make sure you don't overwrite any data that is already in that directory - be careful when using powerful commands such as this!