tar a list of files...

[jmckinzie]

Team,

This seems pretty basic but I am unsure.
I have afile located in /tmp that has a list of files....i want to tar each of those files into one tar ball.

so, lets say the filename of the list of files is /tmp/aa how do i tell the tar to go get those files nad only create on tar ball?

[Geoff Wild]

tar cvf aa.tar `cat /tmp/aa`

Rgds...Geoff

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi Jody:

# tar -cvf myarchive `cat /tmp/aa`

Regards!

...JRF...

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi Jody,

if there are many files in /tmp/myfiles to be archived, you can use 'pax', which can write tar-format but can read the files to be archived from stdin as well:
pax -w -f myarchive.tar
That way you won't get a 'arglist too long' error.

mfG Peter

[Srimalik]

cat /tmp/aa | xargs tar -cvf aa.tar

[Steven Schweda]

Or, if you use (the option-rich) GNU "tar":

--files-from=file
-T file
tar will use the contents of file as a list of archive members or files to
operate on, in addition to those specified on the command-line. See files.


http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/
http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi,

I want to warn, using the xargs-solution above:
Since - with a long filename list - the xargs calls multiple times and the option 'c' is used, the tarfile will contain only the files of its last execution.
An update/append option is possible, however.

mfG Peter

[Dennis Handly]

>Srikrishan: cat /tmp/aa | xargs tar -cvf aa.tar

This will just overwrite aa.tar when xargs repeats. Also, you should not be using cat:
$ xargs tar -cvf < /tmp/aa

Similarly use:
$ tar -cvf aa.tar $(< /tmp/aa)

Of course Peter and Steven have the solution for infinite number of files.

[jmckinzie]

I have figured this out via the help provided.