Is there any fast way to extract a single file from tar?

Question

I have a large tar file, almost around 150GB. I need a single file from it, and am having trouble even estimating how long it would take to extract. If I do tar -xvf mytar.tar file.txt, nothing happens, even after I waited for an hour. I've tried opening the file in python, but calling extract returns nothing as well.

I could iterate the files in the tar when opening it with python, but am a bit at a loss. I did try unpacking the whole tar ball, but after running for 8 hours, it only managed to extract 1/3 of the content, then died for some reason.

I'm really at a loss with what to do, could the file be corrupt? If so, are there any tools I could use to see if the file I need is in there?

Answer 1

I suppose the best test is to list the files, something like:

tar -tvf tarball.tar

You will be able to see the files, and verify that your file is listed before a possible corruption point is reached.

If you want to both see the output and conserve it, use:

tar -tvf tarball.tar | tee outfile