Which command unarchives a tar.gz file?

• A. tar -zcvf file.tar.gz
• B. tar -zxvf file.tar.gz
• C. gpg -o file.tar.gz -d file.tar.gz.gpg
• D. netstat -aup

Answer: (B)

To unarchive a tar.gz, you combine tar's extract operation with gzip decompression in one command. The -x flag tells tar to extract files, -z applies gzip decompression to the tarball, -f specifies the archive file, and -v can be added for verbose output. So tar -zxvf file.tar.gz will decompress file.tar.gz and extract its contents in one step. Variants like tar -xzf file.tar.gz or tar -xzvf file.tar.gz achieve the same result. The other options are unrelated to extracting archives (one creates an archive, another decrypts, and another is a networking tool).