-d, --diff, --compare Find differences between archive and file system. The arguments are optional and specify archive members to compare. If not given, the current working directory is assumed.

-x, --extract, --get Extract files from an archive. Arguments are optional. When given, they specify names of the archive members to be extracted.

-t, --list List the contents of an archive. Arguments are optional. When given, they specify the names of the members to list.

-r, --append Append files to the end of an archive. Arguments have the same meaning as for -c (--create).

-A, --catenate, --concatenate Append archive to the end of another archive. The arguments are treated as the names of archives to append. All archives must be of the same format as the archive they are appended to, otherwise the resulting archive might be unusable with non-GNU implementations of tar. Notice also that when more than one archive is given, the members from archives other than the fi

-c, --create Create a new archive. Arguments supply the names of the files to be archived. Directories are archived recursively, unless the --no-recursion option is given.

--delete Delete from the archive. The arguments supply names of the archive members to be removed. At least one argument must be given. This option does not operate on compressed archives. There is no short option equivalent.

--test-label Test the archive volume label and exit. When used without arguments, it prints the volume label (if any) and exits with status 0. When one or more command line arguments are given. tar compares the volume label with each argument. It exits with code 0 if a match is found, and with code 1 otherwise. No output is displayed, unless used together with the -v (--verbose) option. There is

-u, --update Append files which are newer than the corresponding copy in the archive. Arguments have the same meaning as with -c and -r options.