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From: Flump <N.B.Pratt@durham.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art
Subject: Re: ?Figlet
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 10:38:14 +0000
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 <1994Nov7.165955.26744@enterprise.rdd.lmsc.lockheed.com>
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On Mon, 7 Nov 1994, Chip Guest 52-V3 (408) 742-3460 wrote:
> try     tar xvf figlet2.1.1.tar
> 
> the f is to indicate a file name follows and not a /dev/???


Yep, near enough. tar is for backing up to tape drives(I think), but it 
can also be used for file archives, much the same way as programs like lha.
not sure if tar xvf <filename> works, I need a '-' :

tar -xf <filename> extracts the file (the -v flag is for verbose output)
				  and if you have a slow link to a remote
				server, I would recommend leaving this out
				as some archives are huge.
just in case you want to back up an archive:
tar -cf <archive_name.tar> <directory/file_list> creates an archive for ya.


Nick