How to read a tarball

[Filippos Klironomos]

I am not sure if you got an answer for your question below:

> to copy files/directories from .bz2 tarball for editing without
decompressing the tarball


but you can't do that. First you have to decompress, then edit, then
compress again.  In order
to see the contents of a tarball all you have to do is use the "t" flag, for
example

tar -jtf tarball.bz2


> My goal is to transfer data between computers on CD/DVD.  After burning
> > their properties change but I need to retain their original so I have
> > to "tar -jcpf tarball.bz2" creating a compressed tarball.  Then I get
> > it burned on CD/DVD.
> >



You can do system backups as well if you add the "P" flag to the options not
to stip
leading "/".


> I'm also searching another alternative.  Any suggestion?  TIA
> >



The only other compression scheme that I know is 'zip' which can be combined
with 'tar'
by passing the 'z' flag instead of 'j' for bz2. Zip works well and fast for
relatively small tarballs.


> Furthermore I don't know whether I can add an edited file/directory
> > back to .bz2 tarball again replacing the old one.  Some compression
> > will allow doing this way.
> >


Notice that if you choose any sort of compression for a tarball then you
cannot do any
incremental additions to it.
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