minitar.lua

minitar.lua is a minimal tar implementation in Lua, based on LuaX.

Description

minitar.lua is a lightweight and portable utility that allows you to create, extract, and test tar archives. It supports multiple compression formats (gzip, lzip, xz) and offers path manipulation features during archiving or extraction.

Installation

Prerequisites

• LuaX and Bang must be installed on your system
• To use compression features, the corresponding tools must be available:
  • gzip for gzip compression
  • xz for xz compression

lzip is provided by LuaX. No external dependency is required for the lzip compression.

Installation

Download the sources, compile and install minitar:

$ git clone https://codeberg.org/cdsoft/minitar.lua
$ cd minitar.lua
$ bang && ninja install

Usage

General syntax

minitar [-h] [-v] [-c] [-x] [-t] [-f archive] [--strip path]
        [--add path] [-C path] [<file>] ... [--gzip [level]]
        [--lzip [level]] [--xz [level]]

Arguments

Argument	Description
<file>	List of files to archive, extract or test

Main options

Option	Description
-h, --help	Display help and exit
-v	Verbose mode (displays detailed information)
-c	Create archive
-x	Extract archive
-t	Test archive (list its contents)
-f archive	Specify archive filename

Path manipulation options

Option	Description
--strip path	Remove path components during archiving or extraction
--add path	Add path components during archiving or extraction
-C path	Change directory before archiving or extracting

Compression options

Option	Description
--gzip [level]	Compress with gzip (optional compression level)
--lzip [level]	Compress with lzip (optional compression level)
--xz [level]	Compress with xz (optional compression level)

The compression format can be deduced from the output filename. These options are necessary to change the default compression level (6) or to compress a stream to the standard output (stdout).

Usage examples

Creating an archive

Create a simple tar archive:

minitar -c -f archive.tar file1 file2 folder1

Create a tar archive compressed with gzip:

minitar -c -f archive.tar.gz file1 file2 folder1 --gzip

Create a tar archive compressed with xz (compression level 9):

minitar -c -f archive.tar.xz file1 file2 folder1 --xz 9

Create an archive after changing directory:

minitar -c -f archive.tar -C /path/to/folder file1 file2

Extracting an archive

Extract a tar archive:

minitar -x -f archive.tar

Extract a compressed tar archive (format is automatically detected):

minitar -x -f archive.tar.gz

Extract an archive to a specific directory:

minitar -x -f archive.tar -C /path/to/destination

Extract an archive removing the first two directory levels:

minitar -x -f archive.tar --strip 2

Listing archive contents

Display the contents of a tar archive:

minitar -t -f archive.tar

Display the contents of a compressed tar archive:

minitar -t -f archive.tar.xz

Path manipulation

--strip option

The --strip option allows you to remove path components during archiving or extraction.

Example: If a file in the archive has the path dir1/dir2/dir3/file.txt, then:

• --strip 1 will result in dir2/dir3/file.txt
• --strip 2 will result in dir3/file.txt
• --strip 3 will result in file.txt

--add option

The --add option allows you to add a prefix to paths during archiving or extraction.

Example: If a file has the path file.txt, then:

• --add prefix will result in prefix/file.txt

Supported compression formats

minitar.lua supports several compression formats:

• gzip: Standard compression format, good balance between compression ratio and speed
• lzip: Compression format offering better compression than gzip
• xz: Modern compression format offering excellent compression ratio

The compression format is automatically detected during extraction based on the file extension:

• .tar.gz or .tgz for gzip
• .tar.lz or .tlz for lzip
• .tar.xz or .txz for xz

License

minitar.lua is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

minitar.lua is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with minitar.lua.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

For further information about minitar.lua you can visit
https://codeberg.org/cdsoft/minitar.lua