Linux tar command

Tips used for Top Tips come from the ExtremeTech forum and are written by our community.

Question from Ijahson "I'm trying to unzip a file using the follwing command tar -zxvf dhcpcd-1.3.22-p14.tar.gz and i get the message cannot open: no such file or directory but if i ls in this directory i can actually see the file is there. What could be wrong. Help please"

Answer from akaBeaVis "1. you don't need the dash (-) 2. linux is case-sensitive, check your spelling 3. no, you are not going crazy, (heh) "

Answer from gregoryas "you must tell linux exactly where this file is located using the full directory name because linux does not assume the current directory is where the file is. Use tar -xzvf ./"file" if you are in the right directory. This should work.

If it doesn't let me know. Using the file manager should work as other people suggested. However, you must have write permissions. I would NOT log in as root if you are connected to the net. "

Got a better answer? Post it in the discussion that generated this tip.

Copyright ?? 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in ExtremeTech.