I am using tar
to archive a group of very large (multi-GB) bz2
files.
If I use tar -tf file.tar
to list the files within the archive, this takes a very long time to complete (~10-15 minutes).
Likewise, cpio -t < file.cpio
takes just as long to complete, plus or minus a few seconds.
Accordingly, retrieving a file from an archive (via tar -xf file.tar myFileOfInterest.bz2
for example) is as slow.
Is there an archival method out there that keeps a readily available "catalog" with the archive, so that an individual file within the archive can be retrieved quickly?
For example, some kind of catalog that stores a pointer to a particular byte in the archive, as well as the size of the file to be retrieved (as well as any other filesystem-specific particulars).
Is there a tool (or argument to tar
or cpio
) that allows efficient retrieval of a file within the archive?