Pack, list and extract archives without surprises.

tar

List before extracting

tar tzf archive.tar.gz | head

Extract into a directory, not into yours

mkdir -p out && tar xzf archive.tar.gz -C out

Create without recording your own paths

tar czf out.tar.gz -C source .

The -C source changes directory first and the trailing . archives contents rather than the folder.

Exclude a noisy directory

tar czf out.tar.gz -C source --exclude='node_modules' .

Scope: tar