using gzip

Hi, I am trying to unzip a file that I unmounted onto a unix machine from a cd I had burned in a Windows machine. The file I am trying to unzip is a .tar file... it was originally a .tar.gz file because it was zipped using gzip. I have tried:
% gzip -d hpux.tar (where hpux.tar is the file that was acquired from the cd).
Do I need to rename this to a .tar.gz file in order to use gzip? I tried that but it didn't work, but I could be doing this incorrectly. Any suggestions?

Also, this zipped files has folders containing other files. When it is finally unzipped, will it set up new folders within the directory where I am unzipping it?

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks:confused:

tar -xvf file.tar

yes, this will set up a new directory sturcture, in the folder where you are executing this command, as per the contents of the tar file...

if you need help on the options do a man tar...

see the x, f options...

do a search on tar in these forums...

Cheers!
Vishnu.

If you do not want to care about filenames, you could also do this:

cd to_where_you_want_to_unpack_the_tar_files
gzip -c < path_to_the_zipped_tar_file | tar xvf -