What does the command 'tar -x' do?

The command 'tar -x' is used to extract files from an archived tar file. The 'tar' command stands for "tape archive" and is commonly used in Linux and Unix systems for creating and manipulating archive files. The '-x' option specifies that you want to extract the contents of that archive.

When you run 'tar -x', it begins the process of unzipping or untarring the files contained within the specified archive, allowing the user to restore the files to their original or specified directory. This is a fundamental operation for managing backups or transporting sets of files.

The other options relate to different functionalities: creating an archive is done with the '-c' option, verbose output during the extraction process can be enabled with '-v', and compressing files typically involves additional tools like 'gzip' or 'bzip2', rather than being a direct function of 'tar' by itself. Therefore, the correct answer highlights the extraction capability of the 'tar' command.