Tar command to extract file into another directory

[kinzy]

I want to extract file into another directory using Tar command i used the following but it didn't work

tar xvf dir.tar -C /export/home/kinzy

i want to know how can i do this on solaris 10.

[Nepomuk]

How exactly didn't it work? Were the contents unpacked to the current directory? Did you get an error message?

[kinzy]

it just give me 2 files not extracted
if i want to extract on different place i have to change the current directory to the place i want to extract on it

[Nepomuk]

Wait, so the command

tar xvf dir.tar

will extract the files in the same directory but if you add the target directory as you do in the initial post, it doesn't extract?

[kinzy]

the output of your command will extract on the same directory where i create the archive.
but the first command i wrote it didn't make anything

[Rabbit]

Doesn't the -C option have to come before the file names?

[kinzy]

i tried

tar xvf -C dir.tar /export/home/kinzy 

but it gave me error

[Rabbit]

The path that you pass to the -C parameter should be before the file name as well.

[kinzy]

like what?
i can't understand

[Rabbit]

Try

tar xvf -C /export/home/kinzy dir.tar

[kinzy]

Also gave me error
error "Tar : -C: NO such file or directory"

[Nepomuk]

Damn, of course it won't work... the f option means, that the archive will be the next argument. Here, the following command should work:

tar xvC /export/home/kinzy -f dir.tar

[kinzy]

Also gave error
tar: C : unknown function modifier

[Nepomuk]

*Sigh* OK, you obviously have a different version of tar than I do, as the above command worked for me. Try the following:

tar xv -C /export/home/kinzy -f dir.tar

[kinzy]

No progress
4 files not extracted

[Rabbit]

Does that directory exist? Or are you wanting tar to create it?

[kinzy]

the directory already exist

[Nepomuk]

Hm, just an idea: Does it help if you add a slash after the directory name? So the command would be

tar xv -C /export/home/kinzy/ -f dir.tar

If not, we'll need a bit of information. What OS are you running? What version of tar are you using? (Use tar --version to find that out.)

[kinzy]

My OS is Solaris 11
Tar version 1.23

[Nepomuk]

OK, it looks like the version of tar used in Solaris doesn't have the -C option in combination with extracting. (At least that's how I read this man page.) Therefore I'd recommend the following workaround:

OLD_PWD=`pwd`; cd /export/home/kinzy/; tar xvf $OLD_PWD/dir.tar; cd $OLD_PWD