List the content of tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2 compressed files

tar is an archiving program designed to store and extract files from an archive file known as a tarfile. You can create a tar file or compressed tar file tar. However sometime you need to list the contents of a tar or tar.gz file on screen before extracting the all files. Following commands will help you to view the content of tarfile.

• To list the content of tar file.

            # tar –tvf  file.tar

• To list the content of a tar.gz file.

            # tar –ztvf  file.tar.gz

•  To List the content of a tar.bz2 file.

# tar –jtvf file.tar.bz2

Where:

§  t: List the contents of an archive

§  v: Verbosely list files processed (display detailed information)

§  z: Filter the archive through gzip so that we can open compressed (decompress) .gz tar file

§  j: Filter archive through bzip2, use to decompress .bz2 files.

§  f filename: Use archive file called filename