Another Question About Tar

[Andrew Kaplan]

This one may be slightly more difficult.

If I want to tar a directory but leave out a specific subdirectory within it, what would the correct syntax be? Thanks.

[Patrick Wallek]

That is not done quite as easily.

I would do something like the following:

# cd /dir/to/tar
# ls -1 >> ../filename
# vi ../filename
(Do this and remove the directory that you want to skip)
# tar -xvf /path/to/file.tar $(cat ../filename)

[Andrew Kaplan]

I followed the steps you had outlined, and the command syntax that I used was:

# tar -cvf /path/to/tar.file $(cat /path/to/test)

I encountered the following error:

Illegal variable name.

What did I miss?

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi Andrew,

try
tar -cvf /path/to/tar.file `cat /path/to/test`

greetings,

Michael

[Andrew Kaplan]

Hi there --

I tried the syntax

tar -cvf /path/to/tar.file `cat /path/to/test`

and got the error:
Cannot add file cat /home/ahk/test: No such file or directory

I also tried

tar -cvf /path/to/tar.file cat'/path/to/test`
and got the following:
Cannot add file cat /home/ahk/test: No such file or directory
Removing leading '/' from absolute path names in the archive

[Bernhard Mueller · Accepted solution]

Andrew,

the reason for the error is that you are using the C-Shell.

Just feed the tar to sh and it will work:

sh -c 'tar cvf /path/to/tarfile $(cat ../filelist)'

Regards,
Bernhard

[Andrew Kaplan]

That did it. Thanks.

[Victor BERRIDGE]

What about something like:
tar -cvf /tmp2/vbe/find_test -C $(find . -print|grep -v )

All the best
Victor

[Bob_Vance]

Another, perhaps slightly more general, dynamic command example :>)

(cd /d2tar ; tar cvf /dev/rmt/0m `ls -1a |grep -vE '^\.$|^\.\.$|^exd1$|^exd2$' ` )

. the "1" lists one per line.

. the "a" is to force "." files to be printed, like ".profile". Depending on the Unix version, they may not show up without it -- e.g., certain Linux.

. the grep's -v excludes lines and -E allows expressions.

. the ^...$ means match entire name from beginning of line to end of line.

. here we exclude 2 directories, "exd1" and "exd2" (the "|" meaning "or").

. finally, the ^\.$|^\.\.$ excludes the "." and ".." that show up in a 'ls -1a' listing (which are current directory and parent directory).


bv