Name
compress
Synopsis
compress [options] [files]
Reduces the size of one or more files using
adaptive Lempel-Ziv coding and move to file.Z.
Restore with uncompress
or
zcat
.
With a filename of -
, or with no
files, compress
reads
standard input.
Unisys claims a patent on the algorithm used by
compress
. Today, gzip
is
generally preferred for file compression.
compress
does not preserve resource forks or HFS
metadata when compressing files that contain them.
Options
-
-b
n
Limit the number of bits in coding to n; n is 9-16; 16 is the default. A lower n produces a larger, less densely compressed file.
-
-c
Write to the standard output (do not change files).
-
-f
Compress unconditionally; i.e., do not prompt before overwriting files. Also, compress files even if the resulting file would actually be larger.
-
-v
Print the resulting percentage of reduction for files.
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