>From the info tar command:

File: tar.info,  Node: extracting files,  Next: extract dir,  Prev:
extracting archives,  Up: extract

Extracting Specific Files
-------------------------

   To extract specific archive members, give their exact member names as
arguments, as printed by `--list' (`-t').  If you had mistakenly deleted
one of the files you had placed in the archive `collection.tar' earlier
(say, `blues'), you can extract it from the archive without changing
the archive's structure.  It will be identical to the original file
`blues' that you deleted.

   First, make sure you are in the `practice' directory, and list the
files in the directory.  Now, delete the file, `blues', and list the
files in the directory again.

   You can now extract the member `blues' from the archive file
`collection.tar' like this:

     $ tar --extract --file=collection.tar blues

If you list the files in the directory again, you will see that the file
`blues' has been restored, with its original permissions, creation
times, and owner.  (These parameters will be identical to those which
the file had when you originally placed it in the archive; any changes
you may have made before deleting the file from the file system,
however, will _not_ have been made to the archive member.)  The archive
file, `collection.tar', is the same as it was before you extracted
`blues'.  You can confirm this by running `tar' with `--list' (`-t').

   Remember that as with other operations, specifying the exact member
name is important.  `tar --extract --file=bfiles.tar birds' will fail,
because there is no member named `birds'.  To extract the member named
`./birds', you must specify `tar --extract --file=bfiles.tar ./birds'.
To find the exact member names of the members of an archive, use
`--list' (`-t') (*note list::).

   You can extract a file to standard output by combining the above
options with the `--to-stdout' option (*note Writing to Standard
Output::).

   If you give the `--verbose' (`-v') option, then `--extract'
(`--get', `-x') will print the names of the archive members as it
extracts them.


On Mon, 2002-11-04 at 23:34, Alan Dayley wrote:
> Before I wiped my partition and installed Red Hat Linux 8.0, I backed up
> my home directory to with tar.  Now that I have things moving and am
> staying with 8.0, I want to restore some of the files from my backup.
> 
> I was using GPG and had generated keys for myself.  I don't know what
> file the keys and/or keyrings are in inside the tar backup.  And, as an
> aside, I am not sure of the tar command syntax to extract specific files
> from the tar file.  I don't want to just extract it all, only the files
> that I need.  Any hints?
> 
> Alan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
David IS Mandala
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