Proper ‘etiquette’ for packaging a tar file is to package it so that it extracts to a directory. But sometimes, the files are packaged by an idiot, and, when extracted, just extract the files right to whatever directory it’s in. (Which is fine, if you expect it.)

tar takes a “t” option (“t” for “list”–get it? I don’t…) to list (list?) the files in a directory. You can use it two ways:

• Pre-emptively: tar ft file.tar will show you how it’d extract.
• Retroactively: rm `tar ft file.tar` will list the files, and pass them as an argument to rm, deleting the mess it just made.