.tar.gz is the filename extension conventionally used with archive files that have been created with the tar command ("tape archiver") and then compressed with GNU gzip.

It's also possible for some versions of tar to transparently call on gzip using a command line switch. For GNU tar and Joerg Jörg Schilling's star this is done with -z.

It's also increasingly common to see .tar.bz2 archives, created with the bzip2 compression utility, possibly called with the GNU tar -j star -bz switches.

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• () JimDennis - 23 Sep 2003
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Revision Comment

• 24 Sep 2003 — typo
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