Rename Directory Name Before tar Happens

bash shell command-line tar
moey picture moey · Mar 16, 2012 · Viewed 27.1k times · Source

I have a directory e.g. /var/tmp/my-dir/ that I frequently compress with the following command:

$ cd /var/tmp/
$ tar -zcf my-dir.tar.gz my-dir/*

Later, when I untar my-dir.tar.gz, it'll create my-dir/ in the current directory. It sounds like the my-dir directory is "wrapped" inside the tarball. Is there a tar option to rename my-dir to e.g. your-dir before the actual tarring happens. So that ...

$ tar -zxf my-dir.tar.gz
# So that ... this creates your-dir/, instead of my-dir/

Thanks.

Answer

ephemient picture ephemient · Mar 16, 2012

Which tar?

GNU Tar accepts a --transform argument, to which you give a sed expression to manipulate filenames.

For example, to rename during unpacking:

tar -zxf my-dir.tar.gz --transform s/my-dir/your-dir/

BSD tar and S tar similarly have an -s argument, taking a simple /old/new/ (not a general sed expression).

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