dtrx stands for “Do The Right
+Extraction.” It's a tool for Unix-like systems that takes all the
+hassle out of extracting archives. Here's an example of how you use
+it:
+
+
$ dtrx linux-2.6.10.tar.bz2
+
+
That's basically the same thing as:
+
+
$ tar -jxf linux-2.6.10.tar.bz2
+
+
But there's more to it than that. You know those really annoying files
+that don't put everything in a dedicated directory, and have the
+permissions all wrong?
+
+
$ tar -zvxf random-tarball.tar.gz
+foo
+bar
+data/
+data/text
+$ cd data/
+cd: permission denied: data
+
+
dtrx takes care of all those problems for
+you, too:
+
+
$ dtrx random-tarball.tar.gz
+$ cd random-tarball/data
+$ cat text
+This all works properly.
+
+
dtrx is simple and powerful. Just use the
+same command for all your archive files, and they'll never frustrate you
+again.
+
+
Features
+
+
+
+
Handles many archive types: You only need to remember
+one simple command to extract
+
+tar,
+zip,
+cpio,
+deb,
+rpm,
+gem,
+7z,
+cab,
+gz,
+bz2, and
+lzma files.
+
+If they have any extra compression, like tar.bz2, dtrx will take
+care of that for you, too.
+
+
Keeps everything organized: dtrx will make sure that archives are extracted into
+their own dedicated directories.
+
+
Sane permissions: dtrx makes
+sure you can read and write all the files you just extracted, while leaving
+the rest of the permissions intact.
+
+
Recursive extraction: dtrx can
+find archives inside the archive and extract those too.
+
+
+
+
Download
+
+
Download dtrx
+6.0. The SHA1 checksum for this file
+is dbe0211c90d6d03035f612fe31f96c825aa75274. New features in this
+release include:
+
+
+
+
When you specify -v at the command
+ line, dtrx will display the files it
+ extracts, much like tar.
+
+
When dtrx prompts you about how to handle
+ recursive archives, you now have the option of listing what those
+ archives before making a decision.
+
+
dtrx will now provide more information about
+ why a particular extraction attempt failed. It will show you error
+ messages from all the attempts it made, rather than only the last error
+ it got. It will also detect and warn you when one of the underlying
+ extraction tools, like cabextract, cannot be
+ found.
+
+
dtrx does a better job of cleaning up after
+ itself. It wouldn't always clean up temporary files after certain
+ errors; that has been fixed. It also catches SIGINT and SIGTERM and
+ cleans up before finishing execution.
+
+
Version 5.0 introduced a regression such
+ that dtrx would not offer to extract
+ recursive archives that were hidden under subdirectories. Version 6.0
+ fixes that.
+
+
+
+
Requirements
+
+
If you have Python 2.4 or greater, this should work out of the box. If
+you're stuck on Python 2.3, you can use this if you install the subprocess module.
+You'll need the usual tools for the archive types you want to extract: for
+example, if you're extracting zip files, you'll
+need zipinfo and unzip.
+
+
Installation
+
+
You can just put scripts/dtrx wherever is
+convenient for you, but if you want to install the program system-wide, you
+can also run the following command as root or equivalent:
+
+
python setup.py install
+
+
See the included INSTALL file for more information.