Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Name

compress

Synopsis

compress [options] [files]

Reduces the size of one or more files using adaptive Lempel-Ziv coding and move to file.Z. Restore with uncompress or zcat.

With a filename of -, or with no files, compress reads standard input.

Unisys claims a patent on the algorithm used by compress. Today, gzip is generally preferred for file compression.

compress does not preserve resource forks or HFS metadata when compressing files that contain them.

Options

-b n

Limit the number of bits in coding to n; n is 9-16; 16 is the default. A lower n produces a larger, less densely compressed file.

-c

Write to the standard output (do not change files).

-f

Compress unconditionally; i.e., do not prompt before overwriting files. Also, compress files even if the resulting file would actually be larger.

-v

Print the resulting percentage of reduction for files.