If I am untaring an archive to a destination that already exists, files with the same name are overwritten, but files present at the destination but not from incoming tar are left unchanged, is that right?
I think the full path of a file normally includes the filename. Is there a term for the path excluding the filename? I.e. the full path of the directory containing the file?
I thought that was what you were looking for although the dirname command doesn't necessarily provide the full path but usually only a relative path so not what you are looking for
"absolute dirname" is probably what I'd use, although "absolute path to the file's containing directory", while much more of a mouthful, is also clearer
