Tar: Difference between revisions

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The magic tar one-line command to unpack a Drupal distribution over an

existing Drupal directory (without ~~nuking~~ sites) ~~- but keep reading!~~

existing Drupal directory (without clobbering your "sites" directory)

tar x --show-omitted-dirs --exclude sites --directory ../work/gr/iic-drupal/ \

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</source>

--

Drupal ships a tarball with the first object being a directory named

after the release (e.g. drupal-6.11/)

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tar x --directory ~/existing-drupal --strip 1 -zf drupal-6.11.tar.gz

</source>

~~But wait!! that command will still overwrite your existing "sites"~~

~~directory which is where you are supposed to store all your~~

;<code>--strip 1</code> : removes the first path component of objects in the tar archive

~~customizations to Drupal~~ -- ~~and you don't want~~ to ~~do that. The~~

;<code>--directory</code> : tells tar to change to a particular directory prior to extracting the contents of the archive

~~recommended procedure is~~ to ~~make backups~~ of ~~your~~ "sites" directory ~~and~~

~~then copy it back into the distribution that you unpack~~. ~~I think a~~

If you're upgrading a Drupal instance, then you already have a "sites" directory. You can skip over this directory in the tar archive with the '''exclude''' option. In

~~better way is to~~ skip over ~~the sites~~ directory~~. Don't even extract it~~

~~from~~ the tar archive~~. You can do this~~ with the '''exclude''' option. In

fact, you can even have tar show you what you have skipped over with

the '''show-omitted-dirs''' option. So, the best way that I know how to

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</source>

This didn't mess with my .git directory, .gitignore file and another

top-level file I had called "crossdomain.xml" ~~but it still nuked~~ my

top-level file I had called "crossdomain.xml"

"sites" directory ~~:-(~~

== Warning ==

{{Messagebox |

|type=warning

|text = Although I could not reproduce this behavior, I did once get my "sites" directory deleted. So, you do have [[backups]] and use [[version control]] right?

}}

I restored it with

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== Documentation ==

There is a ~~'''~~lot~~'''~~ more option information in the <code>tar --help</code> output

There is a lot more option information in the '''<code>tar --help</code>''' output

than in the man page. The "info" manual is also online at http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html providing full documentation for tar.

than in the man page. Of course if you <code>sudo apt-get install tar-doc</code> then you can view the info manual. The "info" manual is also online at http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html providing full documentation for tar.

~~I'll have to test --keep-newer-files to see if that works.~~

== Alternatives ==

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 The magic tar one-line command to unpack a Drupal distribution over an
-existing Drupal directory (without nuking sites) - but keep reading!
+existing Drupal directory (without clobbering your "sites" directory)
 <source lang="bash">
 tar x --show-omitted-dirs --exclude sites --directory ../work/gr/iic-drupal/ \
@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 </source>
---
 Drupal ships a tarball with the first object being a directory named
 after the release (e.g. drupal-6.11/)
@@ Line 26: / Line 25: @@
 tar x --directory ~/existing-drupal --strip 1 -zf drupal-6.11.tar.gz
 </source>
-But wait!! that command will still overwrite your existing "sites"
-directory which is where you are supposed to store all your
+;<code>--strip 1</code> : removes the first path component of objects in the tar archive
-customizations to Drupal -- and you don't want to do that.  The
+;<code>--directory</code> : tells tar to change to a particular directory prior to extracting the contents of the archive
-recommended procedure is to make backups of your "sites" directory and
-then copy it back into the distribution that you unpack.  I think a
+If you're upgrading a Drupal instance, then you already have a "sites" directory.   You can skip over this directory in the tar archive with the '''exclude''' option.  In
-better way is to skip over the sites directory.  Don't even extract it
-from the tar archive.  You can do this with the '''exclude''' option.  In
 fact, you can even have tar show you what you have skipped over with
 the '''show-omitted-dirs''' option.  So, the best way that I know how to
@@ Line 41: / Line 38: @@
 </source>
 This didn't mess with my .git directory, .gitignore file and another
-top-level file I had called "crossdomain.xml" but it still nuked my
+top-level file I had called "crossdomain.xml"
-"sites" directory :-(
+== Warning ==
+{{Messagebox |
+|type=warning
+|text = Although I could not reproduce this behavior, I did once get my "sites" directory deleted.   So, you do have [[backups]] and use [[version control]] right?
+}}
 I restored it with
@@ Line 58: / Line 60: @@
 == Documentation ==
-There is a '''lot''' more option information in the <code>tar --help</code> output
+There is a lot more option information in the '''<code>tar --help</code>''' output
-than in the man page.  The "info" manual is also online at http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html providing full documentation for tar.
+than in the man page.  Of course if you <code>sudo apt-get install tar-doc</code> then you can view the info manual.  The "info" manual is also online at http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html providing full documentation for tar.
-I'll have to test  --keep-newer-files to see if that works.
 == Alternatives ==