How do I tar a directory of files and folders without including the directory itself?

Question

I typically do:

tar -czvf my_directory.tar.gz my_directory

What if I just want to include everything (including any hidden system files) in my_

Answer 1

This is what works for me.

tar -cvf my_dir.tar.gz -C /my_dir/ $(find /my_dir/ -maxdepth 1 -printf '%P ')

You could also use

tar -cvf my_dir.tar.gz -C /my_dir/ $(find /my_dir/ -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -printf '%P ')

In the first command, find returns a list of files and sub-directories of my_dir. However, the directory my_dir is itself included in that list as '.' The -printf parameter removes the full path including that '.' and also all crlf However the space in the format string '%P ' of printf leaves a remnant in the list of files and sub-directories of my_dir and can be seen by a leading space in the result of the find command.

That will not be a problem for TAR but if you want to fix this, add -mindepth 1 as in the second command.