the -a flag causes tar to automatically pick the right compressor to filter the archive through, based on the file extension. e.g. "tar -xaf archive.tar.xz" is equivalent to "tar -xJf archive.tar.xz" "tar -xaf archive.tar.gz" is equivalent to "tar -xzf archive.tar.gz" No need to remember -z is gzip, -j is bzip2, -Z is .Z, -J is xz, and so on :)

extract () { if [ -f $1 ] ; then case $1 in *.tar.bz2) tar xvjf $1 ;; *.tar.gz) tar xvzf $1 ;; *.tar.xz) tar Jxvf $1 ;; *.bz2) bunzip2 $1 ;; *.rar) unrar x $1 ;; *.gz) gunzip $1 ;; *.tar) tar xvf $1 ;; *.tbz2) tar xvjf $1 ;; *.tgz) tar xvzf $1 ;; *.zip) unzip $1 ;; *.Z) uncompress $1 ;; *.7z) 7z x $1 ;; *) echo "don't know how to extract '$1'..." ;; esac read -r -p "Delete the compressed file? [Y/N] " response response=${response,,} # tolower if [[ $response =~ ^([Yy]es|YES|[Yy])$ ]]; then echo "rm '$1'" rm $1 fi else echo "'$1' is not a valid file!" fi }

compress(){ # compress [FIle/Folder] [NewFileName].[Suffix] # compress image.jpg pictures.tar.bz2 # compress Document/ folder.rar if [ -f $1 ] || [ -d $1 ]; then case $2 in *.tar.bz2) tar -jcvf $2 $1 ;; *.tar.gz) tar -zcvpf $2 $1 ;; *.tar) tar -cvpf $2 $1 ;; *.zip) zip -r $2 $1 ;; *.rar) rar a -r -rr10 $2 $1 ;; *) echo "don't know how to compres '$1'..." ;; esac else echo "'$1' is not a valid file or folder2" fi }

The function had to be cut down to meet the maximum command length requirements. The full version of the function is: extract() { if [ -f $1 ]; then case $1 in *.tar.bz2) tar xvjf $1 ;; *.tar.gz) tar xvzf $1 ;; *.bz2) bunzip2 $1 ;; *.rar) unrar x $1 ;; *.gz) gunzip $1 ;; *.tar) tar xvf $1 ;; *.tbz2) tar xvjf $1 ;; *.tgz) tar xvzf $1 ;; *.zip) unzip $1 ;; *.Z) uncompress $1 ;; *.7z) 7z x $1 ;; *) echo "'$1' cannot be extracted via >extract<" ;; esac else echo "'$1' is not a valid file!" fi } Note: This is not my original code. I came across it in a forum somewhere a while ago, and it's been such a useful addition to my .bashrc file, that I thought it worth sharing. Show Sample Output

Simple Compressed Backup of the /etc Linux compatible