Uncompressing Files with uncompress

Compressing a file is handy for reducing the amount of disk space it uses, but you can’t do much with a compressed file—directly, at least. You’ll need to uncompress it first. As Code Listing 13.9 shows, you do so using the uncompress command.

Code Listing 13.9. You can uncompress files with a single swift command and possibly double your disk usage at the same time, as shown here.
[ejr@hobbes compression]$ ls -l l*
-rw-r-r-1 ejr   users   297027 Jul 27
→ 10:06 labrea.tar.Z
[ejr@hobbes compression]$ uncompress
→ labrea.tar.Z
[ejr@hobbes compression]$ ls -l l*
-rw-r-r-1 ejr   users   501760 Jul 27
→ 10:06 labrea.tar
[ejr@hobbes compression]$

To Uncompress a File with uncompress:

  • uncompress labrea.tar.Z

    At the shell ...

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