summary

tar combines many files into one, but does not compress them, so you'll often see a compressed tar file, like diskImage.tar.gzip

List contents without extracting ( safe )

tar -tf image.tar

extract

tar -xvf <file>

-x = extract
-f = file
-v = verbose ( optional )

Extract into a directory:
-C /path/to/directory

It auto-detects compression by default
But if you need explicit flags:

• -z / --gzip → use gzip (.tar.gz, .tgz)
• -j / --bzip2 → use bzip2 (.tar.bz2)
• -J / --xz → use xz (.tar.xz)
• --lzma → use lzma (.tar.lzma)
• --zstd → use zstd (.tar.zst)
• --lzop → use lzop

archiving files:

tar -czf outputName.tar.gz source_folder

• archive the contents of folder 'source_folder,'
• compress them with gzip,
• name the output 'outputName.tar.gz '