tar a directory excluding a subdirectory

[majdi]

Hi,
I'm trying to tar a directory, but in the same command I want to exclude a subdirectory within the directory being tared. I tried using the following command;

Command used;
tar -cvf test.tar directory_name --exclude “/directory_name/sub-directory”

The command successfully tared the directory, but did not exclude the sub-directory. Cant see why this is happening? Can anyone help?

Current working directory;
/home/user/dump

Directory to be tared;
/home/user/dump/directory_name

System used;
FC6

Regards,

Majdi

[leigh123linux]

there should be a = sign

tar -cvf test.tar directory_name --exclude=/directory_name/sub-directory

[marko]

Another point, that last argument for the excluded directory has to have
exactly the same naming format as the directory you're tarring even if
it really means the same thing, i.e. you'd agree that if you're
in /etc directory that "/etc/yum.repos.d" and "yum.repos.d" are
really the same directory but tar isn't that smart you have to
tell it the same formatting since it just compares the strings
in a dumb manner.

In the above if I read it literally:

tar -cvf test.tar directory_name --exclude=/directory_name/sub-directory

has no a leading slash on "directory_name" then
you're doing a relative path, so your --exclude= value has to
also be relative so don' t use the "/" after the "="

tar -cvf test.tar directory_name --exclude=directory_name/sub-directory

I tested this by tarring a file to my home directory while occuping
the /etc directory and tarring yum.repos.d

Works incorrectly with "/" after =

$> pwd
/etc
$> tar cvf /home/mos/foo.tar yum.repos.d --exclude=/etc/yum.repos.d/unused
yum.repos.d/
yum.repos.d/fedora-extras.repo
yum.repos.d/dries.repo
yum.repos.d/macromedia-i386.repo
yum.repos.d/freshrpms.repo
yum.repos.d/fedora-core.repo
yum.repos.d/unused/
yum.repos.d/unused/livna-testing.repo
yum.repos.d/unused/fedora-extras-development.repo
yum.repos.d/unused/fedora-development.repo
yum.repos.d/unused/fedora-updates-testing.repo
yum.repos.d/unused/livna-devel.repo
yum.repos.d/unused/fedora-legacy.repo
yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo
yum.repos.d/livna.repo

Works correctly

$> tar cvf /home/mos/foo.tar yum.repos.d --exclude=yum.repos.d/unused
yum.repos.d/
yum.repos.d/fedora-extras.repo
yum.repos.d/dries.repo
yum.repos.d/macromedia-i386.repo
yum.repos.d/freshrpms.repo
yum.repos.d/fedora-core.repo
yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo
yum.repos.d/livna.repo

Mark

[majdi]

Thanks guys,

I tried Mark's code and it worked fine.

tar -cvf test.tar directory_name --exclude=directory_name/sub-directory

I tried the same code only this time using the absolute path, it worked but it tared the directory with the same directory structure as the absolute path. Why is this happening? And how do I avoid this?

tar -cvf test.tar /home/user/dump/directory_name --exclude=/home/user/dump/directory_name/sub-directory

I have another question on the tar issue; Is there a way you can tar only the files in a directory so that when you extract that tar file it extracts those file and places them in the current working directory. This avoids having to move the files out of the tared directory and into the current working directory.

Thanks again.

Majdi

[jbannon]

I have another question on the tar issue; Is there a way you can tar only the files in a directory so that when you extract that tar file it extracts those file and places them in the current working directory. This avoids having to move the files out of the tared directory and into the current working directory.

Change to the source directory first then run tar.

[marko]

I have another question on the tar issue; Is there a way you can tar only the files in a directory so that when you extract that tar file it extracts those file and places them in the current working directory.

you can do this ("O" option extracts to standard out, then use ">" to redirect to a local file
of the same name )

tar xOf test.tar dir1/dir2/filename.txt > filename.txt

sometimes this is handy if the tar file has the files in various staggered dirs but
you just want to drop them in one directory.

Mark

[majdi]

Thanks again guys,

I tried this in the source directory and it worked fine. With this code, I don't have to move the files out of the tared directory and into the working directory after extracting, all I have to do now is run extract.

[source-directory]# tar -cvf test.tar *

Regards,

Majdi