How to make sure a .tar.gz file is valid and will uncompress correctly?

Question

I have a few BIG .tar.gz files, and I want to make sure they will uncompress, but without actually doing it.

If the file opens on "Archive Manager" on Ubuntu, and I can view it contents there, does that mean the .tar.gz will successfully uncompress when I try to?

Solution

Good lads provide cryptographic checksums like MD5, SHA1 or SHA256 together with big .tar.gz files. Match the computed checksum against the original one. This is a good bet that your file is healthy (assuming the original checksum wasn't computed against a broken tarball).

Comments

[AaronS]

Is this a programming question?

[Admin]

Doesn't sound like it, but it could be ... Hurans, are you trying to check the file using a PHP script? (assuming this is the case from other recently posted question)

[John Boker]

possible duplicate of How to check if a Unix .tar.gz file is a valid file without uncompressing?