diff --git a/locale/locale.bzl b/locale/locale.bzl
index fd76d26fb..5f10c53e5 100644
--- a/locale/locale.bzl
+++ b/locale/locale.bzl
@@ -16,10 +16,9 @@ def _impl(ctx):
         ],
         command = """
         set -o pipefail -o errexit -o nounset
-        ar -x "$1" data.tar.xz
         tmp=$(mktemp -d)
-        tar -xf data.tar.xz -C "$tmp" ./usr/lib/locale/C.UTF-8 ./usr/share/doc/libc-bin/copyright
-        rm data.tar.xz
+        ar -x "$1" --output "$tmp" data.tar.xz
+        tar -xf "$tmp/data.tar.xz" -C "$tmp" ./usr/lib/locale/C.UTF-8 ./usr/share/doc/libc-bin/copyright
         cp -r "$tmp/usr/lib/locale/C.UTF-8/." $2
         mv "$tmp/usr/share/doc/libc-bin/copyright" $3
         """,