From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Wed Sep  3 04:22:29 2003
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C901616A4BF
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Wed,  3 Sep 2003 04:22:29 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from remt20.cluster1.charter.net (remt20.cluster1.charter.net
	[209.225.8.30])	by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9831B43F75
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Wed,  3 Sep 2003 04:22:28 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from chowse@charter.net)
Received: from [66.168.145.25] (HELO moe)
	by remt20.cluster1.charter.net (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 4.0.6)
	with ESMTP id 144714036 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org;
	Wed, 03 Sep 2003 07:22:26 -0400
From: "Charles Howse" <chowse@charter.net>
To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 06:22:20 -0500
Message-ID: <003101c3720d$a43d54d0$04fea8c0@moe>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2616
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165
Importance: Normal
Subject: Tar question
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>,
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>,
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2003 11:22:29 -0000

I'm a little confused about the arguments for tar.
I want to tar the contents of a directory and save that .tgz file for
backup purposes.

Problem is, when I copy larry.tgz to /disk2 and:
Tar xvfz larry.tgz
It creates the /disk2 file structure within /disk2.

# cd
# ls /disk2
# freebsd larry (directories)
# tar cvfz larry.tgz /disk2
# cp larry.tgz /disk2
# cd /disk2
# tar xvfz larry.tgz
# ls 
# freebsd larry disk2 (directories)

How can I make tar not create the directory structure within the same
directory?
Does that make sense?
I tried tar cvfzP, no joy.

Man tar didn't have anything that jumped out at me, but I could have
missed or misunderstood something.
If the solution is in the man page, I would appreciate a reference to
the section, so I can re-read it to understand.



Thanks,
Charles