tar -x without clobbering directories

[Greg Rundlett (freephile)]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Michael ODonnell
<michael.odonnell at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> My Debian system's tar identifies itself as "tar (GNU tar) 1.22" and
> the output generated with --help includes the following excerpt where
> that --no-overwrite-dir option sounds like what you wanted:
>
>  Overwrite control:
>
>  -k, --keep-old-files       don't replace existing files when extracting
>      --keep-newer-files     don't replace existing files that are newer than
>                             their archive copies
>      --no-overwrite-dir     preserve metadata of existing directories
>      --overwrite            overwrite existing files when extracting
>      --overwrite-dir        overwrite metadata of existing directories when
>                             extracting (default)
>      --recursive-unlink     empty hierarchies prior to extracting directory
>      --remove-files         remove files after adding them to the archive
>  -U, --unlink-first         remove each file prior to extracting over it
>  -W, --verify               attempt to verify the archive after writing it
>


Thanks.  There is a lot more option information in the --help output
than in the man page.

I wanted to overwrite all directories except "sites" which is why I
was hoping --exclude=sites would work.

I'll have to test  --keep-newer-files to see if that works.
http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html#SEC72

p.s. I read the tar man page (more than once), and those options
aren't listed. There is this BUG statement at the bottom:

BUGS
       The GNU folks, in general, abhor man pages, and create info
documents instead.  Unfortunately, the info document describing tar is
licensed under the GFDL with invariant cover texts, which violates the
Debian  Free  Software Guidelines.  As a result, the info
documentation for tar is not included in the Debian package.

       If you want to read the complete documentation for GNU tar,
please refer to the online version at

                   <http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/index.html>

       This  man  page  was created for the Debian distribution.  It
does not describe all of the functionality of tar, and it is often out
of date.  Patches to improve the coverage and/or accuracy of this man
page are appreciated, and should be filed as wishlist severity bugs
against the Debian tar package, not submitted to the GNU tar
maintainers.

-- 
Greg Rundlett
Web Developer - Initiative in Innovative Computing
http://iic.harvard.edu
camb 617-384-5872
nbpt 978-225-8302
m. 978-764-4424
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