Command Explanation
-z unzip
-x extract file
-v verbose
-f Force
-t table of contents

Create Tar with Gzip Compression

tar -cvzf filename.tar.gz directoryORfileToCompress

Compress with date in filename 
tar -cvzf filename.$(date +"%Y-%m-%d").tar.gz directoryORfileToCompress

Test the contents of an archive

The following command can be used to view the contents of an archive. You can then decide if you wish to strip a component when uncompressing 

tar tvf filename.tar.gz

Extract

tar -xzvf filename.tar.gz