archivetxz

archivetxz is a command-line utility designed to create and extract compressed tar archives using the XZ compression algorithm. It produces files with the .txz extension, representing tar archives compressed with XZ. The tool is intended for Unix-like environments and aims to provide a straightforward interface for packaging directories and files with strong compression efficiency while preserving metadata.

Operation and format: archivetxz builds a tar archive from the specified input paths and streams that archive through XZ compression to produce a single .txz file. The resulting archive retains standard tar metadata such as file permissions, ownership, modification times, symlinks, and hard links. The process is typically streaming, which minimizes disk usage by avoiding the creation of an uncompressed tar on disk.

Features: The tool supports common archive operations including create, extract, and list. It offers options to specify compression level, to exclude patterns, and to operate on multiple input paths in a single invocation. Some implementations also provide a verify or test mode to check archive integrity.

Usage: To create an archive: archivetxz -c archive.txz dir1 dir2. To extract: archivetxz -x archive.txz. To list contents: archivetxz -t archive.txz. Extensions and interoperability: txz is a widely supported container format; most tar implementations can read txz files produced by archivetxz, and archivetxz itself interoperates with standard tar and xz tools.

See also: tar, xz, txz, tar.xz.