Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 23:38:24 -0700 (MST)
From:  George Hilley 

Here is how to use tar:

if you want to make an archive, use:

tar cvf <archivename>.tar <file list>

(c)ompress, (v)erbose error reporting, (f)ile instead of tape.

but, if you want to instead write to stdout:

tar cvf - <filelist>

writes archive to standard output which can then be piped into:

gzip -9c

(9) is highest compression, (c) is write to the standard output

Which you can then redirect into a file (such as /tmp/<filename>)


so the summary of how to do it in one line would be:
tar cvf - <filelist> | gzip -9c > filelist.tar.gz




To get all of the files out, then type 

gunzip filelist.tar.gz

then untar it:

tar xvf filelist.tar