scintill76 on Show HN: Extract it – Because nobody can remember tar commands

Comment on Show HN: Extract it – Because nobody can remember tar commands parent

    var input = document.querySelector('#leInput'),
    commands = {
      '.tar': 'tar xfv',
      '.zip': 'unzip',
      '.tar.bz2': 'tar jxvf',
      '.tar.gz': 'tar xfvz',
      '.tar.bz': 'tar xjf',
    };

I don't think the difference between .bz2 and .bz makes any sense. Am I wrong, or is it just that bz2 extracts verbosely and bz doesn't? I'd guess these flags were copied from some random sources without the author realizing they are nearly equivalent.

I know difficulty with tar is a meme[1], but once you get over that "j" means bz2, why is it hard to remember V for Verbose, Z for gZip, X for eXtract, F for File (which you'll almost always be passing)? I ask this both rhetorically because it shouldn't be hard, but also because I am sometimes oddly hesitant when forming tar commands. But not enough to reach for a web page.

[1] https://xkcd.com/1168/

mahouse 11y

It's not hard at all. I personally memorised "zxvf", and change z accordingly, or remove v if it's a shitload of files and it floods my terminal.

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