dtrx

cleanly extract many archive types

SYNOPSIS

dtrx [OPTIONS] ARCHIVE [ARCHIVE ...]

DESCRIPTION

dtrx extracts archives in a number of different formats; it currently supports tar, zip (including self-extracting .exe files), cpio, rpm, deb, gem, 7z, cab, rar, lzh, arj, and InstallShield files. It can also decompress files compressed with gzip, bzip2, lzma, xz, lrzip, lzip, or compress.

In addition to providing one command to handle many different archive types, dtrx also aids the user by extracting contents consistently. By default, everything will be written to a dedicated directory that's named after the archive. dtrx will also change the permissions to ensure that the owner can read and write all those files.

To run dtrx, simply call it with the archive(s) you wish to extract as arguments. For example

$ dtrx coreutils-5.*.tar.gz

You may specify URLs as arguments as well. If you do, dtrx will use wget -c to download the URL to the current directory and then extract what it downloads. This may fail if you already have a file in the current directory with the same name as the file you're trying to download.

OPTIONS

dtrx supports a number of options to mandate specific behavior

-r, --recursive
    With this option, dtrx will search inside the archives you specify to see
    if any of the contents are themselves archives, and extract those as
    well.

--one, --one-entry
    Normally, if an archive only contains one file or directory with a name
    that doesn't match the archive's, dtrx will ask you how to handle it.
    With this option, you can specify ahead of time what should happen.
    Possible values are:

    inside
        Extract the file/directory inside another directory named after the
        archive.  This is the default.

    rename
        Extract the file/directory in the current directory, and then rename
        it to match the name of the archive.

    here
        Extract the file/directory in the current directory.

-o, --overwrite
    Normally, dtrx will avoid extracting into a directory that already exists,
    and instead try to find an alternative name to use.  If this option is
    listed, dtrx will use the default directory name no matter what.

-f, --flat
    Extract all archive contents into the current directory, instead of
    their own dedicated directory.  This is handy if you have multiple
    archive files which all need to be extracted into the same directory
    structure.  Note that existing files may be overwritten with this
    option.

-n, --noninteractive
    dtrx will normally ask the user how to handle certain corner cases, such
    as how to handle an archive that only contains one file.  This option
    suppresses those questions; dtrx will instead use sane, conservative
    defaults.

-l, -t, --list, --table
    Don't extract the archives; just list their contents on standard output.

-m, --metadata
    Extract the metadata from .deb and .gem archives, instead of their normal
    contents.

-q, --quiet
    Suppress warning messages.  List this option twice to make dtrx silent.

-v, --verbose
    Show the files that are being extracted.  List this option twice to
    print debugging information.

--help
    Display basic help.

--version
    Display dtrx's version, copyright, and license information.