Opening a .tar.gz file with a single command

Question

When I download a .tar.gz file, I open it with two commands, first gunzip and then tar.

Is it possible to open it with just one command?

Answer 1

The only thing that I would add is that z usually only works on gnu tar. The typical UNIX tar won't have this in my experience at least. – Jon Mar 16 at 16:19

The z option works well on my OS-X 10.5 as well.

When it comes to memorizing, I think it´s easy to think of what you want and not just some letters.

1. If you want to create an archive, then c will be the first option, else x will be the first option if you want to extract.
2. If you want to compress/decompress with the gzip/gunzip program, then the next option should be z for zip. (All archives ending with .gz must be unzipped with the z option)
3. The last mandatory option is f for the file.

Then you usually end up with these two commands:

• tar czf file.tar.gz /folder_to_archive/*
• tar xzf file.tar.gz