LINUX
COMMANDS
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Tarballs, gzips, bzip2s, and zips
$ tar
A file with the extension .tar is a tarball.
A file with the extension .tar.gz (and less commonly
.tgz) is a compressed tarball.
A tarball is one or more files bunched together to form
a single file (an archive) with the tar
utility. This uncompressed .tar file can then be
compressed with gzip to form a .tar.gz
(or .tgz) file.
Using tar is simple. Just remember: c
to create or x to extract; and tag on vfz.
| switch |
description |
| c |
create |
| x |
extract |
| v |
verbose (to display what's going on) |
| f |
filename follows (required) |
| z |
run through gzip to compress/uncompress |
tar xvfz foo.tar.gz
Extract the contents of the foo.tar.gz file.
tar cvfz foo.tar.gz foo
Create a compressed (gzipped) tarball called foo.tar.gz,
containing the directory foo.
tar cvfj foo.tar.bz2 foo
Create a compressed tarball using the superior (20% better
compression), but slower bzip2 compression, rather than
the more prevalent gzip compression.
tar xvfj foo.tar.bz2
Extract the contents of the foo.tar.bz2 file.
$ gzip
The gzip command compresses a single file. (Unlike
tar cvfz that creates a separate archive and then
compresses that archive.)
gzip report.pdf
Compress report.pdf as report.pdf.gz.
gzip -d report.pdf.gz
Decompress report.pdf.gz, so it becomes, report.pdf.
Note:
Alternatively to do the same thing, you can use: gunzip
report.pdf.gz
$ bzip2
The bzip2 command compresses a single file. (Unlike
tar cvfj that creates a separate archive and then
compresses that archive.)
bzip2 report.pdf
Compress report.pdf as report.pdf.bz2.
bzip2 -d report.pdf.bz2
Decompress report.pdf.bz2, so it becomes, report.pdf.
Note:
Alternatively to do the same thing, you can use: bunzip2
report.pdf.bz2
$ zip
Zips (.zip) are a popular archiving and compression
format used in Microsoft Windows.
zip reportbk report
Zip the file report as reportbk.zip.
zip -r myzip mydir
Zip the directory mydir as myzip.zip.
-r (recursive) being required to zip directories.
$ unzip
unzip myzip
Unzip the file myzip.zip.
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