use of tar to extract a file

[Ron Bromwell]

I have an upgrade for my database in a tar file that I downloaded to the directory on my system. I can't seem to get the file extracted using tar with the x option. Any ideas on what I may be doing wrong?

[John Carr_2]

Hi

command would usually be when in directory of file

tar -xf ./myfilename

[Nicolas Dumeige]

You can use file on the file to check that it's a normal tar archive ; i.e. not gzipped for instance ...

tar -tvf shall give you the list of file in the archive.

Cheers

[Marvin Strong]

depending on how the tar was made.

tar xvf tarfile fullpath/file

should extract it for you.

if your not sure the path

tar tvf tarfile will show you.

[Ron Bromwell]

I keep getting a directory checksum error

[Shannon Petry]

This file may not be tar, but compressed tar. I have many times had Netscape or IE remove the second extension from "file.tar.gz", and rename it tar.

First, type

% file myfile.tar

If this is gzipped tar, it will tell you the file is awk program text. For compressed tar, it will tell you that it is 16 bit compressed. If it is tar, it will tell you it is tar.

Once you know what the file really is, it should be easy to fix. Simply rename the file accordingly.

It is always possible that the file is plain old corrupt. If this was an FTP binary file that came down in ASCII mode instead of binary, then the file is broken and you will need to re-download in the right mode.

Regards,
Shannon

[Ron Bromwell]

Shannon,
I got the following error when I issued
% file myfile.tar

cannot open for reading

[Robert-Jan Goossens · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Did you use a ftp binary mode when you downloaded the upgrade file.

Robert-Jan

[RAC_1]

Are the perms OK on file? Should have read access to you.

Anil

[Ron Bromwell]

It comes back as a tar file. must be something wrong withthe file I downloaded. I'll have to re-download it.