Compressed Files

Compressing files

Using target file extension

Only tested and confirmed to work with:

• .tar.xz
• .tar.gz

tar -caf archive.tar.xz file1 file2 file3

Can be used with * to include all files in folder

tar -caf archive.tar.xz *

Specify compression

Compression options

 -a, --auto-compress        use archive suffix to determine the compression program
-j, --bzip2                filter the archive through bzip2
-J, --xz                   filter the archive through xz
    --lzip                 filter the archive through lzip
    --lzma                 filter the archive through xz
    --lzop                 filter the archive through lzop
    --zstd                 filter the archive through zstd
-z, --gzip, --gunzip, --ungzip   filter the archive through gzip

Example

tar -cf archive.tar.xz file1 file2 file3 --xz

Extracting files

TAR

tar -xf archive.tar.xz

Tar relevant switches

Taken from help message

• -x, --extract, --get extract files from an archive
• -c, --create create a new archive
• -f, --file=ARCHIVE use archive file or device ARCHIVE
• -a, --auto-compress use archive suffix to determine the compression program
• -z, --gzip, --gunzip, --ungzip filter the archive through gzip
• -v, --verbose verbosely list files processed

Zip

unzip archive.zip

Uncompress .Z files

Source: https://www.linuxfordevices.com/tutorials/linux/uncompress-z-file

uncompress archive.z

or

gzip -d archive.z