Treat all input file or member names literally, do not interpret
escape sequences. @xref{input name quoting}.
+@opsummary{no-verbatim-files-from}
+@item --no-verbatim-files-from
+
+Instructs @GNUTAR{} to treat each line read from a file list as if it
+were supplied in the command line. I.e., leading and trailing
+whitespace is removed and, if the result begins with a dash, it is
+treated as a @GNUTAR{} command line option.
+
+This is default behavior. This option is provided as a way to restore
+it after @option{--verbatim-files-from} option.
+
+It is implied by the @option{--no-null} option.
+
+@xref{no-verbatim-files-from}.
+
@opsummary{no-wildcards}
@item --no-wildcards
Do not use wildcards.
@item --null
When @command{tar} is using the @option{--files-from} option, this option
-instructs @command{tar} to expect file names terminated with @acronym{NUL}, so
-@command{tar} can correctly work with file names that contain newlines.
+instructs @command{tar} to expect file names terminated with
+@acronym{NUL}, and to process file names verbatim.
+
+This means that @command{tar} correctly works with file names that
+contain newlines or begin with a dash.
+
@xref{nul}.
+See also @ref{verbatim-files-from}.
+
@opsummary{numeric-owner}
@item --numeric-owner
Display file modification dates in @acronym{UTC}. This option implies
@option{--verbose}.
+@opsummary{verbatim-files-from}
+@item --verbatim-files-from
+
+Instructs @GNUTAR{} to treat each line read from a file list as a file
+name, even if it starts with a dash.
+
+File lists are supplied with the @option{--files-from} (@option{-T})
+option. By default, each line read from a file list is first trimmed
+off the leading and trailing whitespace and, if the result begins with
+a dash, it is treated as a @GNUTAR{} command line option.
+
+Use the @option{--verbatim-files-from} option to disable this special
+handling. This facilitates the use of @command{tar} with file lists
+created by @command{file} command.
+
+This option affects all @option{--files-from} options that occur after
+it in the command line. Its effect is reverted by the
+@option{--no-verbatim-files-from} option.
+
+This option is implied by the @option{--null} option.
+
+@xref{verbatim-files-from}.
+
@opsummary{verbose}
@item --verbose
@itemx -v
@smallexample
tar (GNU tar) @value{VERSION}
-Copyright (C) 2013-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+Copyright (C) 2013-2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
you specify either @code{--files-from=-} or @code{-T -}), then the file
names are read from standard input.
-Unless you are running @command{tar} with @option{--create}, you can not use
+Unless you are running @command{tar} with @option{--create}, you cannot use
both @code{--files-from=-} and @code{--file=-} (@code{-f -}) in the same
command.
@end smallexample
@noindent
-In the file list given by @option{-T} option, any file name beginning
-with @samp{-} character is considered a @command{tar} option and is
+By default, each line read from the file list is first stripped off
+any leading and trailing whitespace. If the resulting string begins
+with @samp{-} character, it is considered a @command{tar} option and is
processed accordingly@footnote{Versions of @GNUTAR{} up to 1.15.1
recognized only @option{-C} option in file lists, and only if the
option and its argument occupied two consecutive lines.}. For example,
@end group
@end smallexample
+@anchor{verbatim-files-from}
+@opindex verbatim-files-from
+If such option handling is undesirable, use the
+@option{--verbatim-files-from} option. When this option is in effect,
+each line read from the file list is treated as a file name. Notice,
+that this means, in particular, that no whitespace trimming is
+performed.
+
+@anchor{no-verbatim-files-from}
+@opindex no-verbatim-files-from
+The @option{--verbatim-files-from} affects all @option{-T} options
+that follow it in the command line. The default behavior can be
+restored using @option{--no-verbatim-files-from} option.
+
@opindex add-file
-If you happen to have a file whose name starts with @samp{-},
-precede it with @option{--add-file} option to prevent it from
-being recognized as an option. For example: @code{--add-file=--my-file}.
+To disable option handling for a single file name, use the
+@option{--add-file} option, e.g.: @code{--add-file=--my-file}.
@menu
* nul::
@command{xargs} and @command{cpio}, and is useful with the
@option{-print0} predicate of @acronym{GNU} @command{find}. In
@command{tar}, @option{--null} also disables special handling for
-file names that begin with dash.
+file names that begin with dash (similar to
+@option{--verbatim-files-from} option).
This example shows how to use @command{find} to generate a list of files
larger than 800K in length and put that list into a file called
When archiving directories that are under some version control system (VCS),
it is often convenient to read exclusion patterns from this VCS'
ignore files (e.g. @file{.cvsignore}, @file{.gitignore}, etc.) The
-following options provide such possibilty:
+following options provide such possibility:
@table @option
@anchor{exclude-vcs-ignores}
Do not apply transformation to hard link targets.
@end table
-Default is @samp{rsh}, which means to apply tranformations to both archive
+Default is @samp{rsh}, which means to apply transformations to both archive
members and targets of symbolic and hard links.
Default scope flags can also be changed using @samp{flags=} statement
$ @kbd{tar -c -f foo.tar --files-from list}
@end smallexample
-The interpretation of @option{--directory} is disabled by
-@option{--null} option.
+The interpretation of options in file lists is disabled by
+@option{--verbatim-files-from} and @option{--null} options.
@node absolute
@subsection Absolute File Names
@node Attributes
@section Handling File Attributes
-@cindex atrributes, files
+@cindex attributes, files
@cindex file attributes
When @command{tar} reads files, it updates their access times. To
record of the file system contents and makes archives more compact, it
may present some difficulties when extracting individual members from
the archive. For example, trying to extract file @file{one} from the
-archive created in previous examples produces, in the absense of file
+archive created in previous examples produces, in the absence of file
@file{jeden}:
@smallexample
@node Split Recovery
@subsubsection Extracting Members Split Between Volumes
-@cindex Mutli-volume archives, extracting using non-GNU tars
+@cindex Multi-volume archives, extracting using non-GNU tars
If a member is split between several volumes of an old GNU format archive
most third party @command{tar} implementation will fail to extract
it. To extract it, use @command{tarcat} program (@pxref{Tarcat}).
$ @kbd{tarcat vol-1.tar vol-2.tar vol-3.tar | tar xf -}
@end smallexample
-@cindex Mutli-volume archives in PAX format, extracting using non-GNU tars
+@cindex Multi-volume archives in PAX format, extracting using non-GNU tars
You could use this approach for most (although not all) PAX
format archives as well. However, extracting split members from a PAX
archive is a much easier task, because PAX volumes are constructed in
@end smallexample
@noindent
-where symbols preceeded by @samp{%} are @dfn{macro characters} that
+where symbols preceded by @samp{%} are @dfn{macro characters} that
have the following meaning:
@multitable @columnfractions .25 .55
@noindent
The program behaves the same way all UNIX utilities do: it will keep
-quiet unless it has simething important to tell you (e.g. an error
+quiet unless it has something important to tell you (e.g. an error
condition or something). If you wish it to produce verbose output,
similar to that from the dry run mode, use @option{-v} option:
projects / chaz / tar / blobdiff