Tar

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Tar

This is an old observation, but just noticed this:

I rarely use Tar, but one advantage is that with the —update flag, it will keep old file members. Now when using Tar to extract, it will extract the old members first, then the newest member will overwrite the older ones and you're left with the most recent files.

Tar does the extract as expected (as does my 3rd party BetterZip), but if I use Apple's Archive Utility, it will not overwrite the old members, and you're left with the older members. Not what I would expect.

Is there a way to get Archive Utility to extract the newest files in a Tar archive?

Posted on Apr 12, 2022 5:16 AM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

126,498 points

Apr 12, 2022 6:57 AM in response to Tony T1

Note that the --update (-u) option only works on uncompressed archives stored in regular files. I see no means to alter Apple's Archive Utility as its Preferences do not provide the feature you seek, nor does defaults read.

Consider either a shell script/function/alias containing tar and the -u flag and do not double-click the tar file in the Finder by sticking to the unarchiving with tar on the command line.

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