--- Nikhil Joshi nikhiljoshy@yahoo.com wrote:
We have zip compression format in Linux and Windows though it is more popular in Windows. I can imagine 'zipping' as compressing the data . Over a few days I have realised that tar format of compresion is the more widely used format not only for backing up data locally on the hard disk but also for distribution of software. So why is it called tar and why the file called tarball?
Actually, tar (which stands for Tape ARchive) is a method of concatenating several files into a single archive file. It is not a file compressor. The tar archive file is subsequently compressed using gzip to produce a gzipped archive file with the extension ".tar.gz" or ".tgz".
Rgds,
Krishnan
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