From: Akemi Yagi <amyagi at gmail.com> > On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Neil Aggarwal wrote: > > Hello: > > > > I tried this command to tar up a set of data files > > updated since yesterday (The data directory contains > > multiple files with varying dates): > > > > /bin/tar -z -c -N 2009-03-25 -f /tmp/test.tgz data > > > > When I look at the content of the test.tgz file, > > it looks like it copied the content of the entire > > directory, not just the newer files. > > > > I am on CentOS 5. > > Try --newer-mtime instead of -N. In my case (CentOS-4 backup > machine), the -N option did not work as it's supposed to. Not sure > about tar on CentOS-5 though. I like the distinction in the man page... -N, --after-date DATE, --newer DATE only store files newer than DATE --newer-mtime DATE like --newer, but with a DATE Translation: --newer-mtime DATE is like --newer DATE, but with a DATE... ^_^ JD