After unsuccessful attempt to make a tar.gz file I can't untar the file. It seems like I have lost it and yet this looks like trivial error one should be able to recover from. Is the content of the file really lost? I have tried all sorts of tar and unzip combinations without success.OS environment and tar version:$cat /etc/redhat-releaseCentOS Linux release 7.2.1511 (Core)$tar --version |grep tartar (GNU tar) 1.26Steps to reproduce:[weshop@demo test]$ lsfile.txt[filip@demo test]$ cat file.txt  hello  [filip@demo test]$ tar cvzf file.txt file.tar.gz  tar: file.tar.gz: Cannot stat: No such file or directory  tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors  [filip@demo test]$ cat file.txt   Om77'([filip@demo test]$ [filip@demo test]$ tar xvzf file.txt  [filip@demo test]$ cat file.txt   Om77'([filip@  [filip@demo test]$ file file.txt  file.txt: gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: Fri Jul 29 18:48:56 2016  [filip@demo test]$  
Unable to untar file after tar error
tar;data recovery;archive
On the line$ tar cvzf file.txt file.tar.gz  you have asked to create a compressed archive of the file file.tar.gz, and that the archive should be called file.txt.  You have simply swapped the two filenames around.The file file.txt will be overwritten by an empty compressed tar archive. This is why the subsequent commands displays weird things.Yes, the original contents of file.txt is now lost. Sorry. Restore from backup.See also this question.