Archive and Compress Files Using gzip
Archive and Compress Files Using gzipgzipUsing gzip is a bit easier than zip in some ways. With zip, you need to specify the name of the newly created Zip file or zip won't work; with gzip, though, you can just type the command and the name of the file you want to compress. $ ls -l -rw-r--r-- scott scott 508925 paradise_lost.txt $ gzip paradise_lost.txt $ ls -l -rw-r--r-- scott scott 224425 paradise_lost.txt.gz You should be aware of a very big difference between zip and gzip: When you zip a file, zip leaves the original behind so you have both the original and the newly zipped file, but when you gzip a file, you're left with only the new gzipped file. The original is gone. If you want gzip to leave behind the original file, you need to use the -c (or --stdout or --to-stdout) option, which outputs the results of gzip to the shell, but you need to redirect that output to another file. If you use -c and forget to redirect your output, you get nonsense like this: Not good. Instead, output to a file. $ ls -l -rw-r--r-- 1 scott scott 508925 paradise_lost.txt $ gzip -c paradise_lost.txt > paradise_lost.txt.gz $ ls -l -rw-r--r-- 1 scott scott 497K paradise_lost.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 scott scott 220K paradise_lost.txt.gz Much better! Now you have both your original file and the zipped version. Tip If you accidentally use the -c option without specifying an output file, just start pressing Ctrl+C several times until gzip stops. |
