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File Compression with gzip

Often it would be nice to make a file smaller - say, to download it faster, or so it takes up less space on your disk. The program to do this is called gzip (GNU zip). Here's how it works:

cd; cp /etc/profile ./mysamplefile
This switches to your home directory and copies an arbitrarily chosen file (/etc/profile) to your current directory, in the process renaming it mysamplefile. This gives you a file to play with when using gzip.

ls -l
Lists the contents of the current directory. Note the size of mysamplefile.

gzip mysamplefile
Compresses mysamplefile.

ls -l
Observe the results of this command: mysamplefile is now called mysamplefile.gz . It's also a good bit smaller.

gunzip mysamplefile.gz; ls -l
This uncompresses the file. Observe that mysamplefile has returned to its original state. Notice that to uncompress, one uses gunzip, not gzip.

rm mysamplefile
Use this command to remove the file, since it was just to practice with.


next up previous contents index
Next: Finding Files Up: More on Files Previous: Files Present and Their   Contents   Index
John Goerzen / Ossama Othman