Tar hints for Mac OS X users: Difference between revisions
imported>Paulproteus (→Creating a tar file without ._ files: Use hello.c not ghello.c) |
imported>Paulproteus |
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* ._hello.c |
* ._hello.c |
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They are a special file generated by Mac OS. Most hidden files can be seen using this command from a Terminal (the hyphen-a stands for "all"): |
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Because they start with dot, many tools hide them by default. You can see them by typing this in the terminal: |
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ls -a |
ls -a |
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However, these special files often cannot be seen using "ls -a". |
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(the hyphen-a stands for "all") |
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If you were creating a tarball of your own code to distribute, you should avoid distributing these extraneous files. The simplest way to create a tar file without these files is to ask tar to exclude them when creating the tar file. So if you would have run this command: |
If you were creating a tarball of your own code to distribute, you should avoid distributing these extraneous files. The simplest way to create a tar file without these files is to ask tar to exclude them when creating the tar file. So if you would have run this command: |
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tar zcvf myproject-0.1.tar.gz myproject-0.1/ |
tar zcvf myproject-0.1.tar.gz myproject-0.1/ |
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instead you need to pass a special set of environment variables to tar. So run it as follows: |
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instead you would run: |
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COPYFILE_DISABLE=true tar zcvf myproject-0.1.tar.gz myproject-0.1/ |
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Because you pass the ''v'' flag to tar, causing it to operate in verbose mode, you can see which files will be added to the resulting tarball. |
Because you pass the ''v'' flag to tar, causing it to operate in verbose mode, you can see which files will be added to the resulting tarball. You can confirm that the file is created without the extra files by listing its contents with this command: |
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tar ztvf myproject-0.1.tar.gz |
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== References == |
== References == |
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* [http://superuser.com/questions/61185/why-do-i-get-files-like-foo-in-my-tarball-on-os-x SuperUser.com discussion on the problem] |
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* [http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20578 Apple Knowledge Base article explaining resource forks and the Apple Double format] |
* [http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20578 Apple Knowledge Base article explaining resource forks and the Apple Double format] |
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* [https://openhatch.org/bugs/issue616 OpenHatch bug describing this problem] |
* [https://openhatch.org/bugs/issue616 OpenHatch bug describing this problem] |
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Latest revision as of 22:42, 22 December 2011
Special information for using tar on Mac OS X
You've probably found this page because you created a tar file on your Mac machine, and it contained extra files.
Creating a tar file without ._ files
On Mac OS X, sometimes the operating system creates hidden files whose names start with a period and an underscore. For example, if you have these files:
- Makefile
- hello.c
Mac OS will sometimes create extra files alongside them in the same directory named:
- ._Makefile
- ._hello.c
They are a special file generated by Mac OS. Most hidden files can be seen using this command from a Terminal (the hyphen-a stands for "all"):
ls -a
However, these special files often cannot be seen using "ls -a".
If you were creating a tarball of your own code to distribute, you should avoid distributing these extraneous files. The simplest way to create a tar file without these files is to ask tar to exclude them when creating the tar file. So if you would have run this command:
tar zcvf myproject-0.1.tar.gz myproject-0.1/
instead you need to pass a special set of environment variables to tar. So run it as follows:
COPYFILE_DISABLE=true tar zcvf myproject-0.1.tar.gz myproject-0.1/
Because you pass the v flag to tar, causing it to operate in verbose mode, you can see which files will be added to the resulting tarball. You can confirm that the file is created without the extra files by listing its contents with this command:
tar ztvf myproject-0.1.tar.gz