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### 3.3 The Three Option Styles

There are three styles for writing operations and options to the command line invoking `tar`. The different styles were developed at different times during the history of `tar`. These styles will be presented below, from the most recent to the oldest.

Some options must take an argument2. Where you place the arguments generally depends on which style of options you choose. We will detail specific information relevant to each option style in the sections on the different option styles, below. The differences are subtle, yet can often be very important; incorrect option placement can cause you to overwrite a number of important files. We urge you to note these differences, and only use the option style(s) which makes the most sense to you until you feel comfortable with the others.

Some options may take an argument. Such options may have at most long and short forms, they do not have old style equivalent. The rules for specifying an argument for such options are stricter than those for specifying mandatory arguments. Please, pay special attention to them.

#### Footnotes

### (2)

For example, `--file` (`-f`) takes the name of an archive file as an argument. If you do not supply an archive file name, `tar` will use a default, but this can be confusing; thus, we recommend that you always supply a specific archive file name.