How to tarball a directory without carrying over /path/to/folder?

Question

Example command:
$ tar -cvjf destination.tar.bz2 /path/to/folder/source

I'd like the final destination.tar.bz2, when extracted, to not include a /path/to/folder/ file directory. It seems inefficient to extract the tarball and then mv the contents of /path/to/folder/source to a different directory.

related: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18681595/tar-a-directory-but-dont-store-full-absolute-paths-in-the-archive — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, May 09 '19 at 12:54

score 22 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 10 '11 at 19:04

22

tar -C /path/to/folder -cvjf /path/for/acrhive.tar.bz2 source

-C (uppercase) means 'change directory', so your file specification becomes relative to the path provided with -C

answered Dec 10 '11 at 19:04

thinice

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Bear in mind that the path you provide for "source" is relative to the "-C". Like, that's what @thinice wrote, it's just that if you still provide an absolute path instead of relative even when using "-C", you don't get the desired result. – GuyPaddock Dec 07 '16 at 21:52

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 10 '11 at 18:59

5

There are many ways to accomplish that, but this is probably the simplest:

cd /path/to/folder
tar -cvjf /past/to/destination.tar.bz2 source

answered Dec 10 '11 at 18:59

Chris S

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I'm partial to 'cd /path/to/folder && tar cjf /path/to/destination.tar.bz2 source' – user1084684 Nov 30 '20 at 04:55

How to tarball a directory without carrying over /path/to/folder?

2 Answers2