The file/tar library provides utilities to create archive files in USTAR format, like the archive that the Unix utility pax generates. The USTAR format imposes limits on path lengths. The resulting archives contain only directories and files (symbolic links are followed), and owner information is not preserved; the owner that is stored in the archive is always “root.”

Creates tar-file, which holds the complete content of all paths. The given paths are all expected to be relative path names of existing directories and files (i.e., relative to the current directory). If a nested path is provided as a path, its ancestor directories are also added to the resulting tar file, up to the current directory (using pathlist-closure).

Packages each of the given paths in a tar format archive that is written directly to the out. The specified paths are included as-is; if a directory is specified, its content is not automatically added, and nested directories are added without parent directories.

Like tar, but compresses the resulting file with gzip.