If you want to do more than just “pack this directory up just as it is” you’ll pretty quickly get to the limits of zip. tar is way more flexible about selecting partial contents and transformation on packing or extraction.
100% of tarballs that I had to deal with were instances of “pack this directory up just as it is” because it is usually people distributing source code who insist on using tarballs.
tar cf foo.tar.xz wherever/
zip -r foo.zip wherever/
7z a foo.7z wherever/
I get that tar needs an f for no-longer-relevant reasons whereas other tools don’t, but I never understood the meme about it beyond that.
Is c for “create” really that much worse than a for “add”?
7z x to extract makes sense. unzip even more. No need for crazy mnemonics or colorful explanation images. It’s complete nonsense that people are ok with that.
I avoid it and use zip or 7z if I can. But for some crazy reason some people stil insist on using that garbage tool and I have no idea why.
If you want to do more than just “pack this directory up just as it is” you’ll pretty quickly get to the limits of zip. tar is way more flexible about selecting partial contents and transformation on packing or extraction.
100% of tarballs that I had to deal with were instances of “pack this directory up just as it is” because it is usually people distributing source code who insist on using tarballs.
Are zip and 7z really that much easier?
I get that
tarneeds anffor no-longer-relevant reasons whereas other tools don’t, but I never understood the meme about it beyond that. Iscfor “create” really that much worse thanafor “add”?7z xto extract makes sense.unzipeven more. No need for crazy mnemonics or colorful explanation images. It’s complete nonsense that people are ok with that.