tar: short create

1 
1 2.6.4 Short Forms with 'create'
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1 
1 As we said before, the '--create' ('-c') operation is one of the most
1 basic uses of 'tar', and you will use it countless times.  Eventually,
1 you will probably want to use abbreviated (or "short") forms of options.
1 A full discussion of the three different forms that options can take
1 appears in ⇒Styles; for now, here is what the previous example
1 (including the '--verbose' ('-v') option) looks like using short option
1 forms:
1 
1      $ tar -cvf collection.tar blues folk jazz
1      blues
1      folk
1      jazz
1 
1 As you can see, the system responds the same no matter whether you use
1 long or short option forms.
1 
1    One difference between using short and long option forms is that,
1 although the exact placement of arguments following options is no more
1 specific when using short forms, it is easier to become confused and
1 make a mistake when using short forms.  For example, suppose you
1 attempted the above example in the following way:
1 
1      $ tar -cfv collection.tar blues folk jazz
1 
1 In this case, 'tar' will make an archive file called 'v', containing the
1 files 'blues', 'folk', and 'jazz', because the 'v' is the closest "file
1 name" to the '-f' option, and is thus taken to be the chosen archive
1 file name.  'tar' will try to add a file called 'collection.tar' to the
1 'v' archive file; if the file 'collection.tar' did not already exist,
1 'tar' will report an error indicating that this file does not exist.  If
1 the file 'collection.tar' does already exist (e.g., from a previous
1 command you may have run), then 'tar' will add this file to the archive.
1 Because the '-v' option did not get registered, 'tar' will not run under
1 'verbose' mode, and will not report its progress.
1 
1    The end result is that you may be quite confused about what happened,
1 and possibly overwrite a file.  To illustrate this further, we will show
1 you how an example we showed previously would look using short forms.
1 
1    This example,
1 
1      $ tar --create folk blues --file=collection.tar jazz
1 
1 is confusing as it is.  It becomes even more so when using short forms:
1 
1      $ tar -c folk blues -f collection.tar jazz
1 
1 It would be very easy to put the wrong string of characters immediately
1 following the '-f', but doing that could sacrifice valuable data.
1 
1    For this reason, we recommend that you pay very careful attention to
1 the order of options and placement of file and archive names, especially
1 when using short option forms.  Not having the option name written out
1 mnemonically can affect how well you remember which option does what,
1 and therefore where different names have to be placed.
1