Unix: Visual QuickStart Guide

Zipping a file or directory with gzip

If you only want to compress a single file or directory, you might choose gzip, rather than compress. gzip is more efficient so you wind up with smaller files than you do with compress. As Code Listing 13.10 shows, you use gzip much the same way that you use compress.

To zip a file or directory with gzip:

1.	ls -l z* At the shell prompt, use ls -l to confirm the name of the file or directory you want to zip. In this example, we're looking for z (as in zipadeedoodah) files.
2.	gzip zipadeedoodah.tar Type gzip followed by the name of the file or directory to gzip. The zipped file will replace the unzipped version and will have a new .gz extension

Tip

You can tar a group of files then compress the single ...