Tar command fails

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I am on Oracle Linux:

tar -cpzf export.tar.gz /dir/dir1/dir2/*

bash: /bin/tar: Argument list too long

I tried the workaround

from the folder /dir/dir1/dir2 :

find . -name '*' -print | tar -cpzf export.tar.gz --files-from �

My issue is that the command inludes the newly created tar file as part of the tar .

How can I ensure if the tar only includes the files in the sub directory dir2 and not the tarfile itself?

Thanks much!

2

Try creating the archive outside of the directory where find is working on.

find . -print | tar cpzf ../export.tar.gz -T -
1 Like
3

Thanks This worked!!

4

You could also just use:

find . ! -name export.tar.gz | tar -cpzf export.tar.gz --files-from -
5

I spoke too soon

I am not sure if I did something wrong, I see 2 files with the same name in the tar file created in the uppper level of subdirectory.

6

File names can have the same name, but not the same path (location where they leave)

Example of two files with the same name

$ tree
.
 dir1
    sumang24.file
 dir2
     sumang24.file

Creating a tar.gz file outside the directory sumang24

$ tar cpvzf ../sumang24.tar.gz *
dir1/
dir1/sumang24.file
dir2/
dir2/sumang24.file

Now, checking the content of sumang24.tar.gz

$ tar tf sumang24.tar.gz
dir1/
dir1/sumang24.file
dir2/
dir2/sumang24.file

For further understanding, you might need to post some more information.
Please, post the following:

  • The result of pwd before issuing the command
  • The output entries shown by the command tar tf export.tar.gz for only those two files you say they are the same.
  • The exact command that you used to tar and gzip.
  • And any clear explanation of what you expected but it was not so.
1 Like
7

Did you remove the export.tar.gz created by your first run before running again using ../export.tar.gz as the output file?

Did you try using the find pipeline I suggested in post #4 in this thread?

8

Yes I did remove the export.tar.gz created by the first run

---------- Post updated at 12:41 AM ---------- Previous update was at 12:37 AM ----------

I also tried the pipe command to exclude the *.tar.gz file but looks like it is being processed by the command as well.

"tar: ./export.tar.gz: file changed as we read it"

$ find . ! -name export.tar.gz | tar -cpzf export.tar.gz --files-from -

tar: ./export.tar.gz: file changed as we read it

---------- Post updated at 12:44 AM ---------- Previous update was at 12:41 AM ----------

Here is a sample output from

tar tf sumang24.tar.gz

-rw-r--r-- user/user 33935 2015-12-05 13:41 ./File1.xml
-rw-r--r-- user/user 33935 2015-12-05 13:41 ./File1.xml
9

Actually, this is happening because find is returning the current directory as well. If you do a find . ! -name export.tar.gz the first result is .
This might work.

find . ! -name export.tar.gz ! -name . | tar -cpzf export.tar.gz --files-from -
1 Like
10

OK: I have kicked off the command suggested by you again

$ find . ! -name export.tar.gz ! -name . | tar -cpzf export.tar.gz --files-from -

Thanks!

11

I do believe one of these is a link.

I am sorry, but it appears that it would create links as well and you are going to see what it appears to be the same file several times.

A better suggestion would have been
tar cpzf ../export.tar.gz .

Or perhaps even

tar cpzf export.tar.gz /dir/dir1/dir2

without the original trailing * , from a different directory than /dir/dir1/dir2

1 Like
12

From: /dir/dir1

$ tar cpzf export.tar.gz /dir/dir1/dir2
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names

Is that OK that it is removing leading `/' from member names?

13

Yes, it is more than OK. If not when you extract the archive it would overwrite the original /dir/dir1/dir2 directory, if exists, instead of extracting it in the current directory as dir/dir1/dir2

Now, if you really, would like to preserver the full path, and overwrite the original path when extracting, then you use the P flag

14

The above command still gave me single files.
The output looks like:
-rw-r--r-- user/user 33935 2015-12-05 13:41 ./File1.xml
-rw-r--r-- user/user 67306 2015-12-04 20:43 ./File2.xml
-rw-r--r-- user/user 39804 2015-12-05 15:01 ./File3.xml

---------- Post updated at 02:18 AM ---------- Previous update was at 02:16 AM ----------

The output of the following command:

tar -ztvf export.tar.gz

---------- Post updated at 02:22 AM ---------- Previous update was at 02:18 AM ----------

Looks like this command
$ tar cpzf export.tar.gz /dir/dir1/dir2

Is creating duplicates. I see the tarfile size has outgrown (by 1G ) the tarfile created via
find . ! -name export.tar.gz ! -name . | tar -cpzf export.tar.gz --files-from -

1 Like
15

You can always use the v flag to let you know what's going on, like:

$ tar cvpzf export.tar.gz /dir/dir1/dir2

or log it

$ tar cvpzf export.tar.gz /dir/dir1/dir2 > /tmp/export.tar.log

That will show up.

16

I used this command to see the contents:

tar -ztvf export.tar.gz > /tmp/list_tar_ztvf.out

17

find is recursive like tar - together they might process files multiple times.
The following makes the find non-recursive

find /dir/dir1/dir2 -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 | tar -cpzf export.tar.gz --files-from -