Create a tar.xz in one command

Question

I am trying to create a .tar.xz compressed archive in one command. What is the specific syntax for that?

I have tried tar cf - file | xz file.tar.xz

Answer 1

Switch -J only works on newer systems. The universal command is:

To make .tar.xz archive

tar cf - directory/ | xz -z - > directory.tar.xz

Explanation

1. tar cf - directory reads directory/ and starts putting it to TAR format. The output of this operation is generated on the standard output.

2. | pipes standard output to the input of another program...

3. ... which happens to be xz -z -. XZ is configured to compress (-z) the archive from standard input (-).

4. You redirect the output from xz to the tar.xz file.