["Followup-To:" header set to alt.os.linux.]
L. Scott M. <scotter59@c...>:
>  On Mar 2, 8:44 pm, ray <r...@zianet.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, 02 Mar 2007 08:37:50 -0800, L. Scott M. wrote:
> > > First I am just starting off using Linux, trying to wean myself away
> > > from Microsoft.
> >
> > > I have some XML files that I have been supporting using Microsoft
> > > Visual Studio 2003/2005, within this enterprise they have the ability
> >
> > I don't know what distribution you're using (it is often helpful to
> 
>  Sorry about that installed SUSE 10.2 on my machine....
> 
>  Really love the learning curve, getting a "tar" file then trying to
>  figure out where to put it, which switch to use, where to put the

Assuming "blah.tar.gz" or "blah.tgz":

   i) To see what's in it:

          tar tvzf blah.tgz     # add "| less" if more than a
                                # screenful.

  ii) To extract it:

      cd /some/where/safe       # Ie. "cd" takes you $HOME, "mkdir dwn"
                                # creates $HOME/dwn, now "cd dwn"

      tar xzf /path/to/blah.tgz # dumps contents into $HOME/dwn

      Or, to pull a single file out of blah.tgz, just name that file
      on the end of the command line.  You get the name from the
      "tvzf" output.

>  Copy files to or restore files from an archive medium.  Options need

 iii) Create compressed tar file:

      cd
      tar czf blah.tgz dwn      # archives and gzips all contents of
                                # $HOME/dwn into $HOME/blah.tgz

>  not be preceded by "-" (though they may be).  The exception to this
>  rule is when your are using a long-style option. -  Linux In a
>  Nutshell page 429.  I then got to read three pages of options all to
>  figure out how to use "tar", my GUI Archive Manager would export, but
>  then the question was to where, my local user, root, under /usr/
>  bin.......  where is the "politically correct" rule of thumb location
>  for downloaded apps  ?

Either in your $HOME if they're just for you, or in /usr/local if for
system wide use.

>  Installing as I type here, thanks oh great masters of the "tar" and
>  the "grep" - seriously thanks, lets see how this goes,

"tar" is quite versatile, which means a lot of options for special
cases.  Most people will never need to use the more obscure ones.  One
relatively obscure one they might need or want is "bzip
compression/decompression", which is the "j" (or --bzip2) switch
instead of "z" (or --compress, --uncompress).  bzip arguably does
better compression than gzip, though it may also be more resource
intensive (better compression == slower).

As for XML, I've done a bit with it but only in text editors (emacs)
which isn't what you're looking for.  I think I prefer to avoid XML
for now.  :-)


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