File Compression and Packaging
|
Package multiple files into a single file. |
gzip
|
Compress files with GNU Zip. |
gunzip
|
Uncompress GNU Zip files. |
bzip2
|
Compress files in BZip format. |
bunzip2
|
Uncompress BZip files. |
bzcat
|
Compress/uncompress BZip files via standard input/output. |
compress
|
Compress files with traditional Unix compression. |
uncompress
|
Uncompress files with traditional Unix compression. |
zcat
|
Compress/uncompress file via standard input/output (gzip or compress). |
zip
|
Compress files in Windows Zip format. |
unzip
|
Uncompress Windows Zip files. |
metamail
|
Extract MIME data to files. |
Linux can compress files into a variety of formats and uncompress
them. The most popular formats are GNU Zip (gzip
), whose compressed files are named with
the .gz suffix, and BZip, which
uses the .bz2 suffix. Other common
formats include Zip files from Windows systems (.zip suffix) and occasionally, classic Unix
compression (.Z suffix).
A related technology involves converting binary files into textual
formats, so they can (say) be transmitted within an email message.
Nowadays this is done automatically with attachments and MIME tools, but
we’ll cover the metamail
program,
which can do this from the command line.
If you come across a format we don’t cover, such as Macintosh sit files, Arc, Zoo, rar, and others, learn more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archive_formats.
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