How can I untar without shell access? I cannot use system or shell_exec commands inside php on the hosting server. I read in php manual that it is possible through gzopen can anyone tell me please how to use it to untar a tar.gz file?
Does your host provide you with some sort of web based 'management' system? If so, I'd have a look in there. eg. cPanel has a file manager that lets you click on the file then click extract.
WinZip at http://www.winzip.com will do this. Note, this is not a free application but they do offer a free trial. I purchased a copy of WinZip back in 1997 or there abouts and highly recommend it to anyone serious about building websites or programming. It won't create tar or gzip files, but it will open then in the Windows environment. I believe the newest version (11) also supports .rar files as well.
WinZip doesn't actually do it on the server though, does it? I assumed that that was what ifyn was after. If you don't mind doing it client side, I would actually suggest 7-Zip from http://www.7-zip.org . The interface is not as polished as WinZip, but it is Free and Open and supports a number of formats (extracting and creating 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR and extracting only RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS).