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How do I "untar" files?

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by dudleymorris

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I downloaded a program with zipped files. The instructions say to unzip & "untar" the files. I can handle unzipping the files, but how do I untar the files? I've never heard of this. As you can probably tell, I'm pretty much a beginner. I don't knowhow to write programs or do programming tasks, so please give directions for "dummies." Thanks!

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by dklippert

Here's the definition:

http://tinyurl.com/341o

"Tar (for "Tape ARchive") is a UNIX shell command that creates a single file called an "archive" from a number of specified files or extracts the files from such an archive. A tar archive has the file suffix ".tar". The files in a tar archive are not compressed, just gathered together in one file.
The name is derived from a time when files were commonly backed up on and occasionally retrieved from magnetic tape as a permanent storage device. (They still are in some data centers.) A tar archive is perhaps more frequently used today to transfer files among UNIX systems. A popular archive handler for Windows systems, WinZip, can be used to extract the files from a tar archive."

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