extract files in sub-directories from a tar file to one directory

Question

Possible Duplicate:
tar – extract discarding directory structure

I have a tar file that include sub-directories each has several files. I need to extract all those files into one directory. Any help?

Which operating system? Tag accordingly. – Daniel Andersson Aug 20 '12 at 07:24 — Daniel Andersson, Aug 20 '12 at 07:24
@DanielAndersson I am using Ubuntu – Labibah Aug 21 '12 at 19:08 — Labibah, Aug 21 '12 at 19:08

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 20 '12 at 07:21

0

Operating system not stated. Assuming some *nix-like variant.

Assuming TAR file tarfile.tar in the current directory:

mkdir temp dirwithfiles
tar xvf tarfile.tar -C temp
find temp -type f -exec mv -i {} dirwithfiles \;
rm -r temp

This will extract the full directory structure, then move all files within to the dirwithfiles directory.

Note mv -i since there might be several files with the same filename that need to be selected from.

answered Aug 20 '12 at 07:21

Daniel Andersson

It's almost uncanny how similar this is to the accepted answer in the question that was later linked as a duplicate. It's obvious enough to not qualify for a patent, though, so I think I'm in the clear. – Daniel Andersson Aug 22 '12 at 09:56

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