Linux Pocket Guide

Name

compress [options] [files] — ncompress

Synopsis

/usr/bin stdin stdout - file -- opt --help --version

compress and uncompress compress and uncompress files in standard Unix compression format (Lempel Ziv). Compressed files have the suffix .Z.

Sample commands
compress file	Compress file to create file.Z. Original file is deleted.
compress -c file	Produce compressed data on standard output.
cat file | compress	Produce compressed data from a pipeline.
uncompress file.Z	Uncompress file.Z to createfile. Original file.Z is deleted.
uncompress -c file.Z	Uncompress the data on standard output.
cat file.Z | uncompress	Uncompress the data from a pipeline.
zcat file.Z	Uncompress the data on standard output.

Compressed tar files: sample commands
tar cZf myfile.tar.Z dirname	Pack directory dirname.
tar tZf myfile.tar.Z	List contents.
tar xZf myfile.tar.Z	Unpack.

Add the v option to tar to print filenames as they are processed.