Go to the previous, next section.

Extracting Specific Files

(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)

To extract specific files, specify them using file name arguments.

In an example above, you created the archive file `~/practice/records', which contained the files `blues', `folk' and `jazz' in the `practice' directory. If, for some reason, you were to lose one of those text files (`rm ~/practice/blues'), you could extract it from the archive file.

First, change into the `practice' directory. Then,

• Invoke tar and specify the `--extract' (`-x') or `--get' operation.

• Specify the archive that the files will be extracted from---`--file=archive-name' (`-f archive-name').

• Specify the files to extract, using file name arguments (if you don't specify any files, tar extracts all the archive members)

% tar --extract --file=records blues

If you list the contents of the directory, you will see that `blues' is back:

% ls
folk
jazz
records
blues

Go to the previous, next section.