compression

NAME
       tar - The GNU version of the tar archiving utility

SYNOPSIS
       tar <operation> [options]

       Operations:
       [-]A --catenate --concatenate
       [-]c --create
       [-]d --diff --compare
       [-]r --append
       [-]t --list
       [-]u --update
       [-]x --extract --get
       --delete

       Common Options:
       -C, --directory DIR
       -f, --file F
       -j, --bzip2
       -p, --preserve-permissions
       -v, --verbose
       -z, --gzip

For example,

(i) compress a list /etc to etc.tar

tar -cvf /etc.tar /etc // only package, not compress

tar -zcvf /etc.tar.gz /etc // packaged, then compress the target by gzip

tar -jcvf /etc.tar.gz /etc // packaged, then compress the target by bzip2

(ii) inquire the contents of the target file

tar -ztvf /etc.tar.gz

(iii) only decompress a list(password) of the target file

tar -zxvf /etc.tar.gz /etc/password

(iv) back up the contents of the target file and keep its authority

tar -zxvpf /etc.tar.gz /etc

(v) at the target /home, back up the file later than 2005/08/08.

tar -N '2005/08/08' -zcvf /etc.tar.gz /home