Often I use tar files downloaded from the internet, sometimes these files don't include a directory containing all other files and directories, so it's very tedious removing all files generated by the extraction, but I can use the following command to remove all the files generated:
# rm -f `tar ft file.tar`
# rm -f `tar ftz file.tar.gz`
if the tar archives contain also some directories I shall add the r option to the command line:
# rm -rf `tar ft file.tar`
# rm -rf `tar ftz file.tar.gz`
merry xmas,
gg1