Tar (computing)

tar
Original author(s)Bell Laboratories
Developer(s)Various open-source and commercial developers
Initial releaseJanuary 1979; 45 years ago (1979-01)
Stable release(s)
BSD tar3.7.2[1] / 2023-09-12
GNU tar1.35[2] Edit this on Wikidata / 2023-07-18
pdtar1986-10-29[3][4] / 1986-10-29
Plan 9 tar? / ?
star2023-09-28[5] / 2023-09-28
Written inpdtar, star, Plan 9, GNU: C
Operating systemUnix, Unix-like, Plan 9, Microsoft Windows, IBM i
PlatformCross-platform
TypeCommand
LicenseBSD tar: BSD-2-Clause
GNU tar: GPL-3.0-or-later
pdtar: Public domain
Plan 9: MIT
star: CDDL-1.0
tar
Filename extension
.tar
Internet media type
application/x-tar
Uniform Type Identifier (UTI)public.tar-archive
Magic numberu s t a r \0 0 0  at byte offset 257 (for POSIX versions)

u s t a r \040 \040 \0  (for old GNU tar format)[6]

absent in pre-POSIX versions
Latest release
various
various
Type of formatFile archiver
StandardPOSIX since POSIX.1, presently in the definition of pax[1]
Open format?Yes

In computing, tar is a computer software utility for collecting many files into one archive file, often referred to as a tarball, for distribution or backup purposes. The name is derived from "tape archive", as it was originally developed to write data to sequential I/O devices with no file system of their own, such as devices that use magnetic tape. The archive data sets created by tar contain various file system parameters, such as name, timestamps, ownership, file-access permissions, and directory organization. POSIX abandoned tar in favor of pax, yet tar sees continued widespread use.

  1. ^ "libarchive - C library and command-line tools for reading and writing tar, cpio, zip, ISO, and other archive formats @ GitHub". www.libarchive.org.
  2. ^ Sergey Poznyakoff (18 July 2023). "tar-1.35 released [stable]". Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  3. ^ John Gilmore (1986-12-10). "v07i088: Public-domain TAR program". Newsgroup: mod.sources. Archived from the original on 2022-02-07. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  4. ^ "posixtar".
  5. ^ "star". Archived from the original on 2023-11-12. Retrieved 2023-11-12.
  6. ^ Gilmore, John; Fenlason, Jay (4 February 2019). "Basic Tar Format". gnu.org. and others. Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 17 April 2019.