function extract () {
      if [ -f $1 ] ; then
        case $1 in
          *.tar.bz2)   tar xjf $1     ;;
          *.tar.gz)    tar xzf $1     ;;
          *.bz2)       bunzip2 $1     ;;
          *.rar)       unrar e $1     ;;
          *.gz)        gunzip $1      ;;
          *.tar)       tar xf $1      ;;
          *.tbz2)      tar xjf $1     ;;
          *.tgz)       tar xzf $1     ;;
          *.zip)       unzip $1       ;;
          *.Z)         uncompress $1  ;;
          *.7z)        7z x $1        ;;
          *)     echo "'$1' cannot be extracted via extract()" ;;
           esac
       else
           echo "'$1' is not a valid file"
       fi
     }

"create ze vucking file"

tar xzvf

"extract ze vucking files"

      atool --extract $*

Anyways, the only options for tar that I commonly use are "c", "x", and "t"; I will use other programs for decompression, and for extracting into a directory, will use cd.