How to include .htaccess in tar commands? [closed]

The shell is expanding * to all files in the current directory that do not start with a dot. This is the same rule that ls uses by default (by convention, files whose names start with a dot are considered "hidden" in Unix). Try instead:

tar -pczf file.tar.gz .

Using . at the end will collect all files in the current directory, including those whose names start with a dot.

The problem isn't tar; the shell does not include hidden files in *. Do

tar -pczf file.tar.gz * .htaccess

And next time, perhaps this question could be posted on SuperUser.

if your task allows you to hop up one directory level and tar the whole directory it works just fine and you don't have to remember anything special to make it work (I almost always forget the other way, and end up with tgz's missing .htaccess files)

tar -pczfv httpdocs.tar.gz httpdocs