TarZ files

[Gary Weimer 253-7796]

In article <kevinf.671993397 at tofu>, kevinf at informix.com (Kevin Franden) writes:
|> 
|> Hello all!
|> 
|> I hope this hasn't been covered too recently.  I have just returned 
|> from a long absence from the net.  I wandered through as many back
|> articals as we keep but I didn't see anything.
|> 
|> I have managed to (finally) secure a(n) (outdated by now) copy
|> of the GNU emacs source.  It is, however, in TarZ format.  
|> 
|> 
|> Just what IS a TarZ file anyhow?  Sorry if that sounds ignorant but I've
|> never seen one before.  I'm told it's a block-by-block  compression of 
|> tar output... I dunno.
|> 
|> I know how to use tar, I know how to use compress but this beast is a 
|> mystery to me!  How on earth can I get at the insides?

TarZ (or .tar.Z) files have been tar'ed and then compress'ed, as in:

    tar cvf - files | compress > file.TarZ

To undo this you could use:

    uncompress -c file.TarZ | tar xvf -

Since I use this a lot, I have the following aliases for csh:

# uncompress/extract
alias ux        'uncompress -c \!:1 | tar xvf - \!:2*'
# uncompress/list table of contents
#   (Note that PAGER must be defined -- I use 'less', 'more' is next-best)
alias ut        'uncompress -c \!:1 | tar tf - | $PAGER'
# tar/compress
alias tc        'tar cvf - \!* | compress > \!:1.tar.Z'

weimer at ssd.kodak.com ( Gary Weimer )