tar: How to create a tar file with arbitrary leading directories w/o 'cd'ing to parent dir
Solution 1:
tar -C changes directory
tar -C /home/user1/ -cvzf dir1.tar.gz dir1
btw, handy one for keeping track of changing directories... use pushd and popd.
pushd .
cd /home/user1
tar cvfz dir1.tar.gz
popd
Solution 2:
With gnu tar, you can create an archive with a different base directory than the actual with:
tar -c --transform 's,^\.,mybasedir,' .
Just adapt the sed expression to your needs.
Solution 3:
OK, I also found out that
tar -czvf file1.tar.gz /home/user1/dir1/../dir1
also worked the way I wanted.