2.3.3 Extracting Specific Files

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To extract specific files, specify them using file name arguments.

In an example above, you created the archive file `~/practice/records', which contained the files `blues', `folk' and `jazz' in the `practice' directory. If, for some reason, you were to lose one of those text files (`rm ~/practice/blues'), you could extract it from the archive file.

First, change into the `practice' directory. Then,

• Invoke tar and specify the `--extract' (`-x') or `--get' operation.
• Specify the archive that the files will be extracted from---`--file=archive-name' (`-f archive-name').
• Specify the files to extract, using file name arguments (if you don't specify any files, tar extracts all the archive members)

% tar --extract --file=records blues

If you list the contents of the directory, you will see that `blues' is back:

% ls
folk
jazz
records
blues

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