Using tar to archive and compress a file or directory

Tar is one of my main tools to archive and compress file. It cannot be any easier

To create,compress and archive a new file, you can just simply use the command

$ tar cvzf foo.tgz *.c *.out

where c = create, v = verbose, z = compress, f = specifies the file name 

To archive a directory testdir, the

$ tar cvzf testdir.tgz testdir