Untar, ungz, gz, tar - how do you remember all the useful options?
Problem
I am pretty sure I am not the only one with the following problem: every time I need to uncompress a file in *nix I can't remember all the switches, and end up googling it, which is surprizing considering how often I need to do this. Do you have a good compression cheat sheet? Or how about a mnemonic for all those nasty switches in tar? I am making this article a wiki so that we can create a nice cheat sheet here. Oh, and about man pages: is there's one thing they are not helpful for, it's for figuring out how to uncompress a file.
Unverified for your environment
Select your OS to check compatibility.
1 Fix
Fix for: Untar, ungz, gz, tar - how do you remember all the useful options?
Or how about using the shell with advanced completion capabilities (like zsh or fresh versions of bash) which will complete the options for you, with comprehensive help? :)) Regarding tar: just look at the "qwerty" keyboard. There are letters "zxcvf" next to each other. You need either "tar czvf file.tar.gz files" or "tar xzvf file.tar.gz".
Awaiting Verification
Be the first to verify this fix
Sign in to verify this fix