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How to write a 'tar' command
(lemmy.sdf.org)
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this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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tar was originally was for tape archiving so it's just a stream of headers and files which end up directed to a file or a device. It's not well ordered, just whatever file happens to be found next is the next in the stream. When you compress the tar this stream it's just piped through gzip or bzip2 on its way.
The tradeoff for compressing this way is if you want to list the contents of the tar then you essentially have to decompress and stream through the whole thing to see what's in it unlike a .zip or .7z where there would be a separate index at the end which can be read far more easily.