Extract a tar.gz file
$ tar -xzvf file.tar.gz
Extract a tar.bz2 file
$ tar -xjvf file.tar.bz2
Extract a tar.xz file (gnu tar)
$ tar -xJvf file.tar.xz
Extract a tar.xz file (bsd tar)
$ xz -d file.tar.xz
$ tar -xvf file.tar
Compress tar.gz file
$ tar -czvf name-of-archive.tar.gz /path/to/directory-or-file
Compress tar.bz2 file
$ tar -czvf name-of-archive.tar.gz /path/to/directory-or-file
Compress Multiple Directories or Files at Once
$ tar -czvf archive.tar.gz /path/to/dir1 /path/to/dir2 /path/to/dir3/file
Exclude Directories and Files
$ tar -czvf archive.tar.gz --exclude=/path/to/directory-or-file-1 --exclude=/path/to/directory-or-file-2 /path/to/dir
Extract the contents of the archive to a specific directory
$ tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz -C /tmp
Not-GNU tar command
$ tar -cvf - file1 file2 dir3 | gzip > archive.tar.gz
Usage
$ tar -czvf /path/to/file.tar.gz --exclude=/path/to/dir/.svn /path/to/dir
