This seems to work from my brief testing: #+AUTHOR: #+OPTIONS: toc:nil #+PROPERTY: header-args:emacs-lisp :var tar-file="bar.tar.gz" :exports none
#+NAME: tar-eg
#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
(let ((contents (format "> tar xzvf %s" tar-file)))
(with-temp-buffer
(insert contents)
(write-file "results.txt"))
contents)
#+END_SRC
#+CALL: tar-eg() :wrap example :exports results
