Technical Briefs

ROHAN help Files

compress, uncompress

compress reduces the size of the named files using adaptive Lempel-Ziv coding. Whenever possible, each file is replaced by one with the extension .Z If no files are specified, the standard input is compressed to the standard output. Compressed files can be restored to their original form using uncompress (expand data).

Note: the GNU compression programs (gzip, gunzip, zcat) give better compression rations and will uncompress files created by compress.

The -f option will force compression of the file even if it does not actually shrink or the corresponding filename.Z file already exists. If -f is not given, the user is prompted as to whether an existing filename.Z file should be overwritten (except when run in the background under /bin/sh).

The -c (cat) option makes compress/uncompress write to the standard output; no files are changed. The nondestructive behavior of zcat is identical to that of uncompress -c.

Syntax is:

       rohan%  compress  filename

where filename is the name of the file you wish to compress.