how to rename files you put into a tar archive using linux 'tar'

Question

I\'m trying to create a tar archive with a couple files, but rename those files in the archive. Right now I have something like this:

tar -czvf file1 /some/p         


        

Answer 1

With --transform, there's no need to make a temporary testDir first. To prepend testDir/ to everything in the archive, match the beginning anchor ^:

tar --transform "s|file3|path/to/renamedFile3|" \
    --transform "flags=r;s|^|testDir/|" \
    -czvf my_archive.tgz file1 /some/path/to/file2 file3 etc

The r flag is critical to keep the transform from breaking any symlink targets in the archive (which also match ^).