tar: file tutorial

1 
1 The '--file' Option
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1 
1 '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME'
1 '-f ARCHIVE-NAME'
1      Specify the name of an archive file.
1 
1    You can specify an argument for the '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' ('-f
1 ARCHIVE-NAME') option whenever you use 'tar'; this option determines the
1 name of the archive file that 'tar' will work on.
1 
1    If you don't specify this argument, then 'tar' will examine the
1 environment variable 'TAPE'.  If it is set, its value will be used as
1 the archive name.  Otherwise, 'tar' will use the default archive,
1 determined at compile time.  Usually it is standard output or some
1 physical tape drive attached to your machine (you can verify what the
1 default is by running 'tar --show-defaults', ⇒defaults).  If
1 there is no tape drive attached, or the default is not meaningful, then
1 'tar' will print an error message.  The error message might look roughly
1 like one of the following:
1 
1      tar: can't open /dev/rmt8 : No such device or address
1      tar: can't open /dev/rsmt0 : I/O error
1 
1 To avoid confusion, we recommend that you always specify an archive file
1 name by using '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' ('-f ARCHIVE-NAME') when writing
1 your 'tar' commands.  For more information on using the
1 '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' ('-f ARCHIVE-NAME') option, see ⇒file.
1