tar

tar

# x: This option tells tar to extract the files.
# v: The “v” stands for “verbose.” This option will list all of the files one by one in the archive.
# z: The z option is very important and tells the tar command to uncompress the file (gzip) or j (bZip2).
# f: This options tells tar that you are going to give it a file name to work with.

tar xvzf file.tar.gz
tar xvjf file.tar.bz2

# Extract to other directory

tar xvzf file.tar.gz -C /path/to/somedirectory

# To extract a specific file:

tar -xvzf file.tar.gz name.f

# View contents:

tar -tvf file.tar.gz