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From: David Kramer <david@kramer.ne.mediaone.net> Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 10:36:49 -0400 Subject: Re: tar command help Steve Borho wrote: > Gerald_P_Jackson@notes.seagate.com wrote: > > I need help with tar command and unix utilities I am > >backing up a development system and it has lots of files > >that do not need to be backed up. Any help and/or > >suggestions appreciated. > I use a combination of find and cpio to do incremental > backups. It's a pretty powerful combination. > From the tar man page: --exclude FILE exclude file FILE -X, --exclude-from FILE exclude files listed in FILE So you can use the find command to generate a list of files to exclude, and create a file from the output. Then you can tar excluding them like: find / -name "*dont_tar*" > /tmp/tar_x_list && tar -X /tmp/tar_x_list === From: BOREK LUPOMESKY Date: Elementary: "tar xzf file.tar.gz" does the whole trick even with (g)unzipping. ===