Linux compression tools

Tar, Zip and Gunzip

=> file archiving, compression, and decompression using the tar, zip and gunzip utilities.

install on alamlinux : sudo dnf install -y tar

TAR FILES

The tar (tape archive) command assembles several files into a single file.
Such a file is called a “tar file”, or “tarball”, and has a .tar extension.
By default, the tar utility doesn’t compress the archived files; it merely stores them in a single physical file.

The following command packs all the current directory files having a .txt extension into a single tar file called mydocs.tar:
tar cvf mydocs.tar *.txt

To list the contents of a tar file, use the “t” (type) flag:
tar tvf mydocs.tar

To extract the contents of a tar file’s, use the “x” (extract) flag:
tar xvf mydocs.tar

GZ FILES

The gzip command compresses a file. Unlike the tar command, gzip replaces the original file with its compressed version.
create a compressed file called myprog.c.gz and delete the original myprog.c file:
gzip myprog.c

You can control the compression level by specifying a number between 1-9:
A value of 9 indicates maximum , 1 indicates minimal compression. The default is 6.
gzip -9 myprog.c

The gzip command can compress tar files as well.
This is useful, for example, when you want to distribute the source files of an entire application in a compact form.
A tarball compressed by gzip typically has the extension tar.gz.
The following command creates a compressed file called mydir.tar.gz and deletes the original mydir.tar file:
gzip mydir.tar

Files with two extensions are problematic for some Web browsers and mail clients.
In that case, you may use a .tgz extension instead of tar.gz. The following two files are identical: mydir.tar.gz and mydir.tgz

You can combine the archiving and compression operations into a single tar command by adding the “z” flag. The following command bundles all

the files having a .c extension into a tarball and compresses it. The

resulting file is myapp.tar.gz:

tar czvf myapp.tar.gz *.c

GUNZIP

The gunzip command decompresses a .gz file and replaces it with the non-

compressed file. The following command restores the file myprog.c. from

myprog.c.gz and deletes the latter:

gunzip myprog.c.gz

“Z” FILES

An older tool called “compress” is used on some Unix systems. Files

created with this command have the extension .Z (capital Z). Similarly,

a tar file compressed with the compress command looks like this:

mydir.tar.Z

Under Linux, you would normally use .gz files; however, some legacy

applications that were developed for other Unix flavors and were ported

to Linux may still use this convention.