Tar

creates an archive (Commonly called a tarball. 'tar' is short for 'tape archive')

Flags

-z use gzip to compress/read the resulting tarball

-j use bzip2 to compress/read the tarball

-c create a new archive.

-v verbose. tar will list all the files it's adding to the archive.

-f the result should be saved into a file (as opposed to being stored on a tape)

-t list the contents of an archive

-x extract files from an archive

Examples:

Create a new archive:

tar -czvf mytar.tgz * - creates a tarball named “mytar.tar.gz”, and archives all files in the current directory into it.

Extract from an archive to the current directory:

tar -xzvf mytar.tgz - Extracts all files in the tarball into the current directory (You can specify a file name at the end to extract just that file.)

Extract from an archive to the specified directory:

tar -xzvf mytar.tgz -C /path/to/directory - - Extracts all files in the tarball into the specified directory (You can specify a file name at the end to extract just that file.)

List the contents of a tarball:

tar -tzvf mytar.tgz

References

1. tar man page
2. Ultimate Tar Command Tutorial