Linux Pocket Guide, 2nd Edition

Name

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

Synopsis

compress [options] [files]

compress and uncompress compress and uncompress files in standard Unix compression format (Lempel Ziv). Compressed files have the suffix .Z.

Sample commands

compress file	Compress file to create file.Z. Original file is deleted.
compress -c file	Produce compressed data on standard output.
cat file  | compress	Produce compressed data from a pipeline.
uncompress file.Z	Uncompress file.Z to create file. Original file.Z is deleted.
uncompress -c file.Z	Uncompress the data on standard output.
cat file.Z | uncompress	Uncompress the data from a pipeline.
zcat file.Z	Uncompress the data on standard output.

Compressed tar files: sample commands

tar -cZf myfile.tar.Z dirname	Pack directory dirname.
tar -tZf myfile.tar.Z	List contents.
tar -xZf myfile.tar.Z	Unpack.

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