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chattsm
Asked: 2011-06-24 02:57:50 +0800 CST

Correct way of using the --remove-files option with TAR

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What is the correct way to use the --remove-files option when using tar?

Is it...

tar -cfvj --remove-files archive.tar.bz2 archive/

Or...

tar -cfvj archive.tar.bz2 archive/ --remove-files
linux command-line-interface tar

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Since the -f argument is telling tar you are going to speficy the file name of the archive you are acting on, I would keep the archive name right after that argument. The list of files and directories to include in the archive should come last. You can specify --remove-files before your other arguments like this:

    tar --remove-files -cvfj archive.tar.bz2 archive/
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  2. For me, the archive file name MUST be after the -f option to avoid bad interpretation and make it easier to understand.

    In my scripts, I prefer to use this syntax :

    tar -cvjf archive.tar.bz2 --remove-files archive/

    I've only switched the j and f options and moved the remove before the dir to archive.
    The -c (--create) is a function to create the tar file, and must be at the beginning.

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