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