# Is this a good way to tar.gz a list of files

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-this-a-good-way-to-tar-gz-a-list-of-files/98532>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** gzip, archive\
**Created:** [May 9, 2023, 7:09am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-this-a-good-way-to-tar-gz-a-list-of-files/98532 "2023-05-09T07:09:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sparrowhawk](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sparrowhawk/32/9148_2.png) [@sparrowhawk](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sparrowhawk)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2023, 7:09am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-this-a-good-way-to-tar-gz-a-list-of-files/98532/1 "2023-05-09T07:09:37Z")

</div>

Hi, I have some code which I don’t control the output of, which generates a whole bunch of files per unique index. We have a restriction on the number of files (inodes) on our filesystem, so it would be nice to make a tarball which can later be unpacked to analyze data from an index of interest. In addition, some of the files per index are quite large, so compression with gzip is also attractive. While I could do this with a `bash` script, is this a good way to do it in julia? Here’s an MWE

```julia
using Tar, GZip, DelimitedFiles 
## Dummy section to generate data similar to mine
# set of unique data indices
lines = [1, 2] 
# writing index_a.txt to index_j.txt per index
for l in lines
    map(x->writedlm(string(l, pad=2)*"_"*x*".txt", rand(10)), [string(x) for x in (String(UInt8.(97:106)))])
end
# make a directory to store tarballs per index
mkdir("tarfiles")
## Actual section: 
# How I would actually read, tar and gzip files similar to mine 
files = readdir()
for l in lines
    idx = occursin.(string(l, pad=2), files)
    tarname = joinpath(pwd(),"tarfiles/")*string(l, pad=2)*".tar"
    Tar.create(pwd(), tarname) do path
        basename(path) in files[idx]
    end
    io = open(tarname)
    fh = GZip.open(tarname*".gz", "w")
    write(fh, io)
    close(fh)
    rm(tarname)
end

```