A user-friendly command-line tool for Ubuntu that makes creating archives (tar.gz, zip, etc.) quick and easy with smart defaults.

• 🚀 Simple, intuitive command-line interface
• 📦 Support for multiple formats: tar.gz, tar.bz2, tar.xz, zip
• 🎯 Smart defaults - just specify what you want to pack
• 🚫 Built-in exclude patterns for common files
• ✨ Colorful output with progress indicators
• 🔒 Safety checks to prevent accidental overwrites

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/strabo231/pack/main/install.sh | bash

1. Download the script:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/strabo231/pack/main/pack

2. Make it executable:

chmod +x pack

3. Move to your PATH:

sudo mv pack /usr/local/bin/

Package a directory (creates myproject.tar.gz):

pack myproject

Create a zip file:

pack -f zip myproject

Custom output name:

pack myproject backup-2024

Save to specific directory:

pack -o ~/backups myproject

Exclude node_modules and log files:

pack -e "node_modules" -e "*.log" myproject

Create compressed backup with multiple exclusions:

pack -f tar.bz2 -e ".git" -e "*.cache" -o ~/backups myproject

Quiet mode (only show errors):

pack -q myproject

• tar.gz - Gzip compressed tar (default, best balance)
• tar.bz2 - Bzip2 compressed tar (smaller, slower)
• tar.xz - XZ compressed tar (smallest, slowest)
• zip - Zip archive (compatible with Windows)

pack [OPTIONS] <source> [output_name]

Arguments:
  source          File or directory to package
  output_name     Optional custom name (without extension)

Options:
  -f, --format    Archive format (tar.gz, zip, tar.bz2, tar.xz)
  -o, --output    Output directory (default: current directory)
  -e, --exclude   Exclude pattern (can be used multiple times)
  -q, --quiet     Suppress non-error output
  -h, --help      Show help message
  -v, --version   Show version information

Standard archiving commands are powerful but cumbersome:

Before:

tar -czf myproject-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz \
  --exclude=node_modules \
  --exclude=*.log \
  -C /path/to myproject

After:

pack -e "node_modules" -e "*.log" myproject myproject-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d)

• Ubuntu 18.04+ (or any modern Linux distribution)
• bash 4.0+
• Standard utilities: tar, zip, du

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

• Auto-detection of optimal compression format
• Progress bar for large archives
• Parallel compression support
• Configuration file support (~/.packrc)
• Archive extraction mode
• Cloud storage integration (S3, Drive)

Your Name - @tattlesnitch

Project Link: https://github.com/strabo231/pack

• Initial release
• Support for tar.gz, tar.bz2, tar.xz, and zip formats
• Exclude pattern support
• Colorful CLI output
• Safety checks for overwrites