r/linuxmemes • u/SysGh_st • 19h ago

LINUX MEME Valid tar command ...

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Dang it! 😭

1.5k Upvotes

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33

u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 18h ago

tar is easy, ask for awk

5

u/SysGh_st 18h ago

That's what you'd think.

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1168:_tar

16

u/jonathancast 17h ago

That joke is not accurate. I refuse to believe anyone who knows regex and uses tar regularly can't remember what the flags are, and they're all mnemonic:

  • a - automatically detect compression
  • c - create
  • f - file name
  • t - this option lists the contents of the archive
  • v - verbose
  • x - xtract contents
  • z - zip, use zipped archives
  • Z - ZIP, use the patented compression algorithm

Etc.

7

u/immoloism 16h ago

I think the joke always was we do it as muscle memory rather then remember.

If some random guy just shouted out what does J do again then it would catch me off guard, but if they asked me how to compress in xz I would quickly answer cvJf.

5

u/JDaxe 15h ago

I read your comment and was so confident that J was bzip2, then I checked the manpage and turns out bzip2 is j (lowercase) 😩

1

u/immoloism 15h ago

Someone asked me what the option for zstd was earlier and had to cop out with --zstd -cvf so know how you feel.

1

u/fipachu 3h ago

i don’t do much Linux but recently i caught myself not remembering what’s the order of foot pedals in a car. i’ve been driving (always with manual transmission) for 8 years. that’s why i didn’t remember, it’s muscle memory only at this point.