tar: verbose tutorial

1 
1 The '--verbose' Option
1 ----------------------
1 
1 '--verbose'
1 '-v'
1      Show the files being worked on as 'tar' is running.
1 
1    '--verbose' ('-v') shows details about the results of running 'tar'.
1 This can be especially useful when the results might not be obvious.
1 For example, if you want to see the progress of 'tar' as it writes files
1 into the archive, you can use the '--verbose' option.  In the beginning,
1 you may find it useful to use '--verbose' at all times; when you are
1 more accustomed to 'tar', you will likely want to use it at certain
1 times but not at others.  We will use '--verbose' at times to help make
1 something clear, and we will give many examples both using and not using
1 '--verbose' to show the differences.
1 
1    Each instance of '--verbose' on the command line increases the
1 verbosity level by one, so if you need more details on the output,
1 specify it twice.
1 
1    When reading archives ('--list', '--extract', '--diff'), 'tar' by
1 default prints only the names of the members being extracted.  Using
1 '--verbose' will show a full, 'ls' style member listing.
1 
1    In contrast, when writing archives ('--create', '--append',
1 '--update'), 'tar' does not print file names by default.  So, a single
1 '--verbose' option shows the file names being added to the archive,
1 while two '--verbose' options enable the full listing.
1 
1    For example, to create an archive in verbose mode:
1 
1      $ tar -cvf afiles.tar apple angst aspic
1      apple
1      angst
1      aspic
1 
1 Creating the same archive with the verbosity level 2 could give:
1 
1      $ tar -cvvf afiles.tar apple angst aspic
1      -rw-r--r-- gray/staff    62373 2006-06-09 12:06 apple
1      -rw-r--r-- gray/staff    11481 2006-06-09 12:06 angst
1      -rw-r--r-- gray/staff    23152 2006-06-09 12:06 aspic
1 
1 This works equally well using short or long forms of options.  Using
1 long forms, you would simply write out the mnemonic form of the option
1 twice, like this:
1 
1      $ tar --create --verbose --verbose ...
1 
1 Note that you must double the hyphens properly each time.
1 
1    Later in the tutorial, we will give examples using
1 '--verbose --verbose'.
1 
1    The full output consists of six fields:
1 
1    * File type and permissions in symbolic form.  These are displayed in
11      the same format as the first column of 'ls -l' output (⇒
      format=verbose (fileutils)What information is listed.).
1 
1    * Owner name and group separated by a slash character.  If these data
1      are not available (for example, when listing a 'v7' format
1      archive), numeric ID values are printed instead.
1 
1    * Size of the file, in bytes.
1 
1    * File modification date in ISO 8601 format.
1 
1    * File modification time.
1 
1    * File name.  If the name contains any special characters (white
1      space, newlines, etc.) these are displayed in an unambiguous form
1      using so called "quoting style".  For the detailed discussion of
11      available styles and on how to use them, see ⇒quoting
      styles.
1 
1      Depending on the file type, the name can be followed by some
1      additional information, described in the following table:
1 
1      '-> LINK-NAME'
1           The file or archive member is a "symbolic link" and LINK-NAME
1           is the name of file it links to.
1 
1      'link to LINK-NAME'
1           The file or archive member is a "hard link" and LINK-NAME is
1           the name of file it links to.
1 
1      '--Long Link--'
1           The archive member is an old GNU format long link.  You will
1           normally not encounter this.
1 
1      '--Long Name--'
1           The archive member is an old GNU format long name.  You will
1           normally not encounter this.
1 
1      '--Volume Header--'
11           The archive member is a GNU "volume header" (⇒Tape
           Files).
1 
1      '--Continued at byte N--'
1           Encountered only at the beginning of a multi-volume archive
1           (⇒Using Multiple Tapes).  This archive member is a
1           continuation from the previous volume.  The number N gives the
1           offset where the original file was split.
1 
1      'unknown file type C'
1           An archive member of unknown type.  C is the type character
1           from the archive header.  If you encounter such a message, it
1           means that either your archive contains proprietary member
1           types GNU 'tar' is not able to handle, or the archive is
1           corrupted.
1 
1    For example, here is an archive listing containing most of the
1 special suffixes explained above:
1 
1      V--------- 0/0            1536 2006-06-09 13:07 MyVolume--Volume Header--
1      -rw-r--r-- gray/staff   456783 2006-06-09 12:06 aspic--Continued at byte 32456--
1      -rw-r--r-- gray/staff    62373 2006-06-09 12:06 apple
1      lrwxrwxrwx gray/staff        0 2006-06-09 13:01 angst -> apple
1      -rw-r--r-- gray/staff    35793 2006-06-09 12:06 blues
1      hrw-r--r-- gray/staff        0 2006-06-09 12:06 music link to blues
1 
1