Nobody wants to deliberately use the wrong compression type when extracting, so modern tar will figure out the compression itself if you just point it at a file. So tar -xf filename works on almost anything. You don't need to remember which flag to use on a .tar.bz2 file and which one for a .tar.xz file.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (3 children)

That doesn't give me a memorable mnemonic though.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

tar -eXtract File

[–] anzo 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

yeah, but then how am I supposed to remember "tar" ? :P

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Tape ARchive -eXtract File