add a directory when creating tar archive

Question

I want to tar some files (and directories) but want to create an additional directory those files should reside in.

So for example for the following directory structure:

myproject
  + file1
  + file2
  + subdir1
    + file3

I cd into the myproject directory and want to create the tar archive

tar czf myproject.tgz --place-into-dir myproject-1.0 file2 subdir1

to receive a tar archive with the following content:

myproject-1.0
  + file2
  + subdir1
    + file3

I am searching for an option like my fictional "--place-into-dir" above. So the files should not be placed directly into the archive, but instead into an additional directory that is only created in the tar archive.

I want to avoid first creating that directory, copying all the files to that directory and then deleting them again only to create the tar archive.

Elianore

Are you using GNU tar? Check output of tar --version? – Promisee

@Promisee Yes, it is GNU tar. Therefore the solution from kalj and Anton with --transform works. Thanks – Elianore

@Promisee I didn't try it, but your example doesn't do what I want. See the the answers of kalj and Anton. – Elianore

Is there a solution when using bsdtar on a Mac? $ tar --version yields bsdtar 2.8.3 - libarchive 2.8.3. tar --help doesn't yield anything obvious, so probably not. – Propositus

Answer 1

You can create a directory on the fly inside the archive using --transform:

tar czf myproject.tgz --transform 's,^,myproject-1.0/,' file2 subdir1

Cuffs

Certainly there should be a slash after directory name in the replace expression: 's,^,myproject-1.0/,' – Bulletproof

Answer 2

GNU tar has --transform option:

--transform=EXPRESSION, --xform=EXPRESSION

use sed replace EXPRESSION to transform file names

This should help you:

tar --transform 's/^myproject$/\0-1.0/' -czf myproject.tgz myproject

Bulletproof