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Old classification of options

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The information here is to be revised and merged into the remainder of this document, possibly altering its structure.

Options could be regrouped in three categories:

General Options
Options that are always meaningful.
Creation Options
Options for creating or updating an archive.
Extraction Options
Options for listing or extracting files.

Here are the options that are always meaningful.

`-B number', `--block-size number'
`-f filename', `--file filename'
`-C dir', `--directory dir'
`-M', `--multi-volume'
`-N date', `--after-date date'
`-R', `--record-number' (`-R')
`-T filename', `--files-from filename'
`-v', `--verbose' (`-v')
`-w', `--interactive'
`-X file', `--exclude file'
`-z', `-Z', `--compress', `--uncompress'

Here are the options for creating or updating an archive. These options are used to control which files tar puts in an archive, or to control the format the archive is written in 

FIXME: ref Format
. Except as noted elsewhere, these options are useful with the `--create' (`-c'), `--append' (`-r'), `--update' (`-u'), `--concatenate' (`-A'), and `--delete' commands. Also note that the option 
FIXME: (pxref Extraction Options),
is also useful with the `--append' (`-r'), `--update' (`-u'), `--concatenate' (`-A'), and `--delete' commands.

`-G', `--incremental'
`-h', `--dereference' (`-h')
`-l', `--one-file-system'
`-o', `--old-archive' (`-o')
`--old', `--portability'
`-S', `--sparse'
`-V NAME', `--volume NAME'
`-W', `--verify'

Here are the options for listing or extracting files. The options in this section are meaningful with the `--extract' (`-x') command. Unless otherwise stated, they are also meaningful with the `--list' (`-t') command.

`-B', `--read-full-blocks'
`-G', `--incremental'
`-i', `--ignore-zeros'
`-k', `--keep-old-files'
`-K filename', `--starting-file filename'
`-m', `--modification-time'
`-O', `--to-stdout'
`-p', `--same-permissions', `--preserve-permissions'
`-P', `--absolute-names' (`-P')
`-s', `--same-order', `--preserve-order'
`--preserve'

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