How do I tar a directory without retaining the directory structure?
LinuxUnixGnuTarLinux Problem Overview
I'm working on a backup script and want to tar up a file directory:
tar czf ~/backup.tgz /home/username/drupal/sites/default/files
This tars it up, but when I untar the resulting file, it includes the full file structure: the files are in home/username/drupal/sites/default/files.
Is there a way to exclude the parent directories, so that the resulting tar just knows about the last directory (files)?
Linux Solutions
Solution 1 - Linux
Use the --directory option:
tar czf ~/backup.tgz --directory=/home/username/drupal/sites/default files
Solution 2 - Linux
Hi I've a better solution when enter in the specified directory it's impossible (Makefiles,etc)
tar -cjvf files.tar.bz2 -C directory/contents/to/be/compressed .
Do not forget the dot (.) at the end !!
Solution 3 - Linux
cd /home/username/drupal/sites/default/files
tar czf ~/backup.tgz *
Solution 4 - Linux
Create a tar archive
tar czf $sourcedir/$backup_dir.tar --directory=$sourcedir WEB-INF en
Un-tar files on a local machine
tar -xvf $deploydir/med365/$backup_dir.tar -C $deploydir/med365/
Upload to a server
scp -r -i $privatekey $sourcedir/$backup_dir.tar $server:$deploydir/med365/
echo "File uploaded.. deployment folders"
Un-tar on server
ssh -i $privatekey $server tar -xvf $deploydir/med365/$backup_dir.tar -C $deploydir/med365/
Solution 5 - Linux
To gunzip all txt (*.txt) files from /home/myuser/workspace/zip_from/
to /home/myuser/workspace/zip_to/ without directory structure of source files use following command:
tar -P -cvzf /home/myuser/workspace/zip_to/mydoc.tar.gz --directory="/home/myuser/workspace/zip_from/" *.txt
Solution 6 - Linux
This worked for me:
gzip -dc "<your_file>.tgz" | tar x -C <location>
Solution 7 - Linux
For me -C or --directory did not work, I use this
cd source/directory/or/file
tar -cvzf destination/packaged-app.tgz *.jar
# this will put your current directory to what it previously was
cd -
Solution 8 - Linux
To build on nbt's and MaikoID's solutions:
tar -czf destination.tar.gz -C source/directory $(ls source/directory)
This solution:
- Includes all files and folders in the directory
- Does not include any of the directory structure (or
.) in the final product - Does not require you to change directories.
However, it requires the directory to be given twice, so it may be most useful in another script. It may also be less efficient if there are a lot of files/folders in source/directory. Adjust the subcommand as necessary.
So for instance for the following structure:
|- source
| |- one
| `- two
`- working
the following command:
working$ tar -czf destination.tar.gz -C ../source $(ls ../source)
will produce destination.tar.gz where both one and two (and sub-files/-folders) are the first items.
Solution 9 - Linux
Kindly use the below command to generate tar file without directory structure
tar -C <directoryPath> -cvzf <Path of the tar.gz file> filename1 filename2... filename N
eg:
tar -C /home/project/files -cvzf /home/project/files/test.tar.gz text1.txt text2.txt
Solution 10 - Linux
tar -Cczf ~/backup.tgz /home/username/drupal/sites/default/files
-C does the cd for you