There are number of tools available in Linux to compress and decompress data.
| Compression | UnCompressing | Extension |
| zip | unzip | .zip |
| gzip | gunzip, gzip -d | .gz |
| tar -cvf | tar -xvf | .tar |
| pack | unpack | .z |
| bzip2 | bunzip2 | .bz2 |
How to check if tools are installed in Linux box
You can check which of this tool is already installed in your system by running "which" command in linux command shell.
Syntex
which <tool-name>
Example
which gzip
On Sucess: This will output the location where gzip tools is installed like:- /bin/gzip
On Failure: This will output something like following
/usr/bin/which: no gzip in (/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin)
Using gzip to compress files in linux
If gzip is installed in your system, you can use following command in Linux command shell to compress a file.
Syntex:-
gzip <filename>
Example
gzip filename.log
Using gunzip to decompress files in linux
To unzip a file in Linux command shell use following command
Syntex:-
gunzip <filename>
Example
gunzip filename.gz
Using gzip -d to decompress files in linux
If gunzip is not availabel you can make use of gzip -d to unzip a file in Linux.
Syntex:-
gzip -d <filename>
Example
gunzip -d filename.gz
where,
-d = decompress
Using tar to compress a directory in Linux
run following command to compress a directory
Syntex:-
tar -cvf <filename.tar> <path-to-directory>
Example
tar -cvf example.tar /home/user1
Where,
c - create
v - verbose
f - archive file name
