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[solved] Why is there no .gz.tar? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip to c/linuxquestions@lemmy.zip

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A .tar archive is basically only the files cat'ed together, with a header and index added, right?

And a .tar.gz takes forever to modify, because it needs to first extract the .tar.

So why is there no archive format that just cat'es the compressed files together?

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[–] Tuuktuuk@piefed.ee 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Hey, you can add to a tarball without extracting it! Maybe that's what you're actually asking?

Anyway, in case it wasn't, here's a bit more answer:

A .tar.gz is a file that used to be .tar and was then compressed by gzip.

A .gz.tar is a file that used to be .gz and was was made into a tarball.

I cannot really imagine why someone would want to turn a .gz file into a tarball. Kind of in order to save it on an actual tape drive, maybe? But then it wouldn't be a tarball. It would be just ones and zeroes physically saved on a tape.

[–] agitated_judge@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You can save .tar.gz files to actual tapes. As you said, it's just one and zeros.

[–] Tuuktuuk@piefed.ee 1 points 4 months ago

Of course, and that is done very often. But why would you want to save a .gz.tar file on a tape?