# tar command help -- extract single file **URL:** \ **Category:** UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers\ **Created:** [July 1, 2008, 2:20am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/tar-command-help-extract-single-file/203132 "2008-07-01T02:20:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![icefish](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/icefish/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@icefish](https://community.unix.com/u/icefish)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:20am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/tar-command-help-extract-single-file/203132/1 "2008-07-01T02:20:35Z")
Hi, I want to view/display the contents of one file in tar file. For example if the tar file is sam.tar.gz and one of the file inside is E1.txt, how do i view the contents of this E1.txt file. Olso if I want to extract the E1.txt file only from sam.tar.gz how can i do that. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![zaxxon](https://community.unix.com/user_avatar/community.unix.com/zaxxon/32/660_2.png) [@zaxxon](https://community.unix.com/u/zaxxon)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:34am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/tar-command-help-extract-single-file/203132/2 "2008-07-01T02:34:48Z")
To print the files use "zcat". But I know no option for it to cat only a single file of the archive. To list the contents of an archive, use: ```nohighlight tar tvf my.tar # or tar tvzf my.tar.gz ``` To extract the file "singlefile.dat" of the archive: ```nohighlight tar xvzf my.tar.gz singlefile.dat ``` ---
**Author:** ![icefish](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/icefish/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@icefish](https://community.unix.com/u/icefish)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:40am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/tar-command-help-extract-single-file/203132/3 "2008-07-01T02:40:30Z")
Thanks. One more question Where will the singlefile.dat be extracted. I dont want to overwrite any existing file. ---
**Author:** ![zaxxon](https://community.unix.com/user_avatar/community.unix.com/zaxxon/32/660_2.png) [@zaxxon](https://community.unix.com/u/zaxxon)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:48am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/tar-command-help-extract-single-file/203132/4 "2008-07-01T02:48:29Z")
Usually in your pwd where you currently are. If done non-interactive via script and cronjob for example, you should do a cd to be sure, you are at the place in the filesystem, where you want to be. I avoid to tar stuff with a leading slash. So I can always move to a tmp directory and extract there to avoid overwriting. It's always a bad surprise if some &\*!@$! (to have it in comic speech censorship) creates an archive with absolute path. That can cause an unwanted update of your data heh. ---
**Author:** ![icefish](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/icefish/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@icefish](https://community.unix.com/u/icefish)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:58am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/tar-command-help-extract-single-file/203132/5 "2008-07-01T02:58:45Z")
Actually I tared the file with absolute path like the command below tar -cvf sam.tar /home/sam Now I want to extract /home/sam/E1.txt in sam.tar to /home/ram Please help. ---
**Author:** ![zaxxon](https://community.unix.com/user_avatar/community.unix.com/zaxxon/32/660_2.png) [@zaxxon](https://community.unix.com/u/zaxxon)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 3:24am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/tar-command-help-extract-single-file/203132/6 "2008-07-01T03:24:29Z")
As I said, please tar without absolute paths. You can get more problems of this than you'd like. Just create some tmp subdirectory close to your destination, uncompress/untar it there and move it to where it belongs. ---
**Author:** ![spirtle](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/spirtle/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@spirtle](https://community.unix.com/u/spirtle)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 5:45am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/tar-command-help-extract-single-file/203132/7 "2008-07-01T05:45:40Z")
Gnu tar helpfully removes any leading / in a path to avoid the potential problems that zaxxon describes -- unless specifically told to keep it with -P. If your tar doesn't do this, you can only do ```nohighlight tar -xf sam.tar /home/sam/E1.txt cp /home/sam/E1.txt /home/ram ``` i.e. you will create E1.txt with the absolute rather than a relative path. tar -x can only extract from the archive what you put in there; use -t (as zaxxon said) to see what that is. ---
**Author:** ![jhtrice](https://community.unix.com/user_avatar/community.unix.com/jhtrice/32/995_2.png) [@jhtrice](https://community.unix.com/u/jhtrice)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:02pm UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/tar-command-help-extract-single-file/203132/8 "2008-07-01T14:02:37Z")
With GNU tar you can use --strip to remove the top level directories when unpacking. See "man tar".