tar: file tutorial
1
1 The '--file' Option
1 -------------------
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