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I want to compare the content of a tar archive (backup of $HOME) with the content of my local $HOME to see whether there are files in the tar file which are not yet in the local filesystem.

What is the best way to do that?

I tried tar -dvf archive.tar * in $HOME already but the output is not really satisfying. It says tar: Videos: Not found in archive for some files and folders on the first directory level although they are in the archive and then it exits with tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors (exit code 2).

EDIT: It's on Ubuntu 10.04 and I'm quite familiar with the bash.

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The problem is you're not using -f so tar isn't using your tar file as input as you're expecting. – Dave Forgac Aug 19 '10 at 16:14
Sorry, i just forgot the options here. I used them. EDITED – dAnjou Aug 19 '10 at 16:36
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up vote 1 down vote accepted

Try this:

tar -dvf example.tar

(in the directory with which you're comparing)

The -d is the same as --diff / --compare

More info: http://www.apl.jhu.edu/Misc/Unix-info/tar/tar_16.html and http://ss64.com/bash/tar.html

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That works great, thanks. – dAnjou Aug 19 '10 at 16:39
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