Need to verify TAR switch -t ?

[Chris Elmore]

Aloha Folks,

I am trying to do a "test run" of un-tarring a very important tarball and I don't want to run the actual file extraction at this time, is it possible to use the -t (table?) switch to get verbose output only to the console screen? Basically I just want to verify that the TAR file's integrity is good. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Very Respectfully,
Chris Elmore

[Alex Lavrov. · Accepted solution]

yep:

tar -tvf


That's all.

[Deoncia Grayson_1]

yes tar with the -tvf will give you the information you seek

Follow this link for more info:

http://www.usc.edu/isd/doc/os/unix/commands/tar.html

[Rick Garland]

I often use the -t switch because if somebody gives me a tarball, I do not know if it had been created with absolute pathing or relative pathing.

I always check them out!

tar -tvf

This will just display the tarball contents on screen, will not write.

[Chris Elmore]

Thanks folks, you have been a great help. =)

Very Respectfully,
Chris Elmore