[linux] How to gzip all files in all sub-directories into one compressed file in bash

Possible Duplicate:
gzipping up a set of directories and creating a tar compressed file

This post describes how to gzip each file individually within a directory structure. However, I need to do something slightly different. I need to produce one big gzip file for all files under a certain directory. I also need to be able to specify the output filename for the compressed file (e.g., files.gz) and overwrite the old compressed file file if one already exists.

there are lots of compression methods that work recursively command line and its good to know who the end audience is.

i.e. if it is to be sent to someone running windows then zip would probably be best:

zip -r file.zip folder_to_zip

unzip filenname.zip

for other linux users or your self tar is great

tar -cvzf filename.tar.gz folder

tar -cvjf filename.tar.bz2 folder  # even more compression

#change the -c to -x to above to extract

One must be careful with tar and how things are tarred up/extracted, for example if I run

cd ~
tar -cvzf passwd.tar.gz /etc/passwd
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
/etc/passwd


pwd

/home/myusername

tar -xvzf passwd.tar.gz

this will create /home/myusername/etc/passwd

unsure if all versions of tar do this:

 Removing leading `/' from member names

@amitchhajer 's post works for GNU tar. If someone finds this post and needs it to work on a NON GNU system, they can do this:

tar cvf - folderToCompress | gzip > compressFileName

To expand the archive:

zcat compressFileName | tar xvf -