Tar Archive

Create

Create new archive

tar -cvf archive.tar file1 ...

tar -cvzf archive.tgz file1 ...
tar -cvzf archive.tar.gz file1 ...

Extract

tar -xvf archive.tar

tar -xvzf archive.tgz
tar -xvzf archive.tar.gz

Extract specific file

tar -xvf archive.tar ./file1

Extract archive to a directory

mkdir -p /target/directory
tar -xvf archive.tar -C /target/directory

Extract by ignoring first level dir

mkdir -p /target/directory
tar -xvf archive.tar -C /target/directory --strip-components=1

Read

tar -tvf archive.tar

Modify

Add files to existing archive

tar -rvf archive.tar file1

Update existing file in archive

tar -uvf archive.tar file1
# cannot update .tar.gz file 

Delete files from archive

tar --delete -vf archive.tar file1