Extract specific file from tar.gz file?

Question

I am trying to extract a specific file from a tar.gz file. This is the code I used:

tar -zxvf Laura.tar.gz Laura/2021-10-22_16.52.10_pWOX5-YFP_x_membraneRed_Movie1/DC_CROPPED_h5/DC_CROPPED.h5

Laura.tar.gz is my tar.gz and DC_CROPPED.h5 is the file that I want to extract (its directory is the one that appears in the code).

Why am I not getting feedback as I run the code? I feel like verbose (-v) is not working.

I am doing all of this in Putty from windows.

Did you check that the file and path are correct? You can do it with `tar -tzvf Laura.tar.gz|grep DC_CROPPED.h5` — Romeo Ninov, Mar 28 '23 at 12:45
I just tried this and I dont get anything back. Should I wait longer? — Marina Herrero, Mar 28 '23 at 12:55
I did not get any propmt. However, while the tar.gz was running, i tried this: doing ctrl+z and it said it stopped and then I did bg and I also got propmt. — Marina Herrero, Mar 28 '23 at 13:03
and do not use Ctrl-Z, this hold the process and put it in baclground — Romeo Ninov, Mar 28 '23 at 13:19
Stop it with Ctrl+c. And try to run `tar -tzvf Laura.tar.gz` to see if there is other problem — Romeo Ninov, Mar 28 '23 at 18:30
Extracting a file from a TAR can take some time - depending on the size of the TAR and your storage performance. — sborsky, Mar 28 '23 at 20:49

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 29 '23 at 04:27

The structure of a tar file is just a long list of ${file_metadata}${file_content} so it still needs to find the specific file you're looking for in the archive, which means sifting through it. Depending on the size of the archive and the performance of the storage it's on, this can take a while.

Extract specific file from tar.gz file?

1 Answers1