Compressed Files

    Published: 2023-07-28
    Updated: 2023-11-08

    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