Like many others, I've scratched this itch too: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/code/hacks/untar http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/code/hacks/untar

Like many others, I've scratched this itch too: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/code/hacks/untar http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/code/hacks/untar a simple bash script. The comments in the source list debian/ubuntu packages to install to support all formats. It detects and extracts .7z .a .ace .arj .cab .cpio .deb .lha .pmd .rar .rpm .tar{,.gz,.Z,.bz2,.xz} .tnef .zip (including .jar, .xpi etc) .zoo and MIME/uuencoded mail attachments without ever splattering multiple files over the current directory. Haven't compared to dtrx.