Very Computer

Hi, is it possible to extract a single file from a .tar.gz archive?
TIA,
Sashi

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Yes, it is possible. Look for the -x and -f options in tar

Assuming GNU tar, you could
  tar -xzf some.tar.gz name_of.single_file.to_extract

Assuming standard tar
  zcat some.tar.gz | tar -x name_of.single_file.to_extract

- --

Lew Pitcher, IT Specialist, Corporate Technology Solutions,
Enterprise Technology Solutions, TD Bank Financial Group

(Opinions expressed here are my own, not my employer's)
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I'm using GNU tar and this approach worked.
Thanks!
Sashi

[...]

I don't think there's such a thing as a /standard/ tar. But for
most tars, the syntax is rather
  tar xf - path/to/name_of.single_file.to_extract
(the options don't start with "-", and the default input file is
rather some tape device, so you need to give "-f -" to specify
"standard input").

Also, zcat is standardized by POSIX/Unix, but that zcat is not
supposed to recognise files compressed with gzip.

So, it should rather be:

gunzip < some.tar.gz | tar xf - path/to/file.to-extract

I think that for some tar implementations,
path/to/file.to-extract is taken as a pattern (so beware of file
paths that contain "*\?[" characters).

--
Stephane