what is a .tar file

A .tar file, short for "tape archive," is a type of archive file in Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. It is used to store a collection of files in a single archive file, which can be easily transferred between computers or stored for backup purposes. The archive data sets created by tar contain various file system parameters, such as name, timestamps, ownership, file-access permissions, and directory organization). A tar archive consists of a series of file objects, each including any file data and preceded by a 512-byte header record). The file data is written unaltered except that its length is rounded up to a multiple of 512 bytes). Unlike ZIP files and many other types of archives, TAR files are not compressed. However, users often compress them using tar or other compression utilities to reduce their file size, making them even easier to store and share. The .tar file format was originally developed as a way of storing files on tapes, but it is now widely used as a general-purpose archive format.