Linux Pocket Guide, 2nd Edition

Name

bzip2 — stdin  stdout  - file  -- opt  --help  --version

Synopsis

bzip2 [options] [files]

bzip2 and bunzip2 compress and uncompress files in Burrows-Wheeler format. Compressed files have the suffix .bz2.

Sample commands

bzip2 file	Compress file to create file.bz2. Original file is deleted.
bzip2 -c file	Produce compressed data on standard output.
cat file | bzip2	Produce compressed data on standard output.
bunzip2 file.bz2	Uncompress file.bz2 to create file. Original file.bz2 is deleted.
bunzip2 -c file.bz2	Uncompress the data on standard output.
cat file.bz2 | bunzip2	Uncompress the data on standard output.
bzcat file.bz2	Uncompress the data on standard output.

bzipped tar files: sample commands

tar -cjf myfile.tar.bz2 dirname	Pack.
tar -tjf -myfile.tar.bz2	List contents.
tar -xjf myfile.tar.bz2	Unpack.

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