Extracting file from a TAR file with java.util.zip.* classes

Question

Is there a way to extract files from a .TAR file using the java.util.zip.* classes?
I tried in some ways but I get the following error:
java.util.zip.ZipException: error in opening zip file
at java.util.zip.ZipFile.<init>(ZipFile.java127)
at java.util.zip.ZipFile.<init>(ZipFile.java92)
Thank you
Giuseppe

Answer 1

download the tar.jar from the above link and use the sample program below
import com.ice.tar.*;
import java.util.zip.GZIPInputStream;
import java.io.*;
public class untarFiles
     public static void main(String args[]){
          try{
          untar("c:/split/20040826172459.tar.gz",new File("c:/split/"));
          }catch(Exception e){
               e.printStackTrace();
               System.out.println(e.getMessage());
     private static void untar(String tarFileName, File dest)throws IOException{
          //assuming the file you pass in is not a dir
          dest.mkdir();     
          //create tar input stream from a .tar.gz file
          TarInputStream tin = new TarInputStream( new GZIPInputStream( new FileInputStream(new File(tarFileName))));
          //get the first entry in the archive
          TarEntry tarEntry = tin.getNextEntry();
          while (tarEntry != null){//create a file with the same name as the tarEntry  
               File destPath = new File(
               dest.toString() + File.separatorChar + tarEntry.getName());
               if(tarEntry.isDirectory()){   
                    destPath.mkdir();
               }else {          
                    FileOutputStream fout = new FileOutputStream(destPath);
                    tin.copyEntryContents(fout);
                    fout.close();
               tarEntry = tin.getNextEntry();
          tin.close();
}