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GZIP(1) 		     General Commands Manual			 GZIP(1)

NAME
     gzip,  gunzip, zcat -- compression/decompression tool using Lempel-Ziv cod-
     ing (LZ77)

SYNOPSIS
     gzip [-cdfhkLlNnqrtVv] [-S suffix] file [file [...]]
     gunzip [-cfhkLNqrtVv] [-S suffix] file [file [...]]
     zcat [-fhV] file [file [...]]

DESCRIPTION
     The gzip program compresses and decompresses files using Lempel-Ziv  coding
     (LZ77).  If no files are specified, gzip will compress from standard input,
     or decompress to standard output.	When in compression mode, each file will
     be replaced with another file with the suffix, set by the -S suffix option,
     added, if possible.

     In decompression mode, each file will be checked for existence, as will the
     file  with  the  suffix  added.  Each file argument must contain a separate
     complete archive; when multiple files are indicated, each	is  decompressed
     in turn.

     In  the case of gzcat the resulting data is then concatenated in the manner
     of cat(1).

     If invoked as gunzip then the -d option is enabled.  If invoked as zcat  or
     gzcat then both the -c and -d options are enabled.

     This  version of gzip is also capable of decompressing files compressed us-
     ing compress(1), bzip2(1), lzip, zstd(1), or xz(1).

OPTIONS
     The following options are available:

     -1, --fast

     -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8

     -9, --best        These options change the compression level used, with the
		       -1 option being the fastest, with less  compression,  and
		       the  -9	option	being the slowest, with optimal compres-
		       sion.  The default compression level is 6.

     -c, --stdout, --to-stdout
		       This option specifies that output will go to the standard
		       output stream, leaving files intact.

     -d, --decompress, --uncompress
		       This option selects decompression  rather  than	compres-
		       sion.

     -f, --force       This  option turns on force mode.  This allows files with
		       multiple links, symbolic links to  regular  files,  over-
		       writing of pre-existing files, reading from or writing to
		       a  terminal, and when combined with the -c option, allow-
		       ing non-compressed data to pass through unchanged.

     -h, --help        This option prints a usage summary and exits.

     -k, --keep        This option prevents gzip from deleting input files after
		       (de)compression.

     -L, --license     This option prints gzip license.

     -l, --list        This option displays information about  the  file's  com-
		       pressed	and uncompressed size, ratio, uncompressed name.
		       With the -v option,  it	also  displays	the  compression
		       method, CRC, date and time embedded in the file.

     -N, --name        This  option causes the stored filename in the input file
		       to be used as the output file.

     -n, --no-name     This option stops the filename and timestamp  from  being
		       stored in the output file.

     -q, --quiet       With this option, no warnings or errors are printed.

     -r, --recursive   This option is used to gzip the files in a directory tree
		       individually, using the fts(3) library.

     -S suffix, --suffix suffix
		       This  option  changes  the  default  suffix  from  .gz to
		       suffix.

     -t, --test        This option will test compressed files for integrity.

     -V, --version     This option prints the version of the gzip program.

     -v, --verbose     This option turns on verbose mode, which prints the  com-
		       pression ratio for each file compressed.

ENVIRONMENT
     If the environment variable GZIP is set, it is parsed as a white-space sep-
     arated list of options handled before any options on the command line.  Op-
     tions on the command line will override anything in GZIP.

EXIT STATUS
     The  gzip	utility  exits 0 on success, 1 on errors, and 2 if a warning oc-
     curs.

SIGNALS
     gzip responds to the following signals:

     SIGINFO
	     Report progress to standard error.

SEE ALSO
     bzip2(1), compress(1), xz(1), zstd(1), fts(3), zlib(3)

HISTORY
     The gzip program was originally written by Jean-loup Gailly, licensed under
     the GNU Public Licence.  Matthew R. Green wrote  a  simple  front	end  for
     NetBSD  1.3  distribution	media, based on the freely re-distributable zlib
     library.  It was enhanced to be mostly feature-compatible with the original
     GNU gzip program for NetBSD 2.0.

     This implementation of gzip was ported based on  the  NetBSD  gzip  version
     20181111, and first appeared in FreeBSD 7.0.

AUTHORS
     This   implementation   of   gzip	 was   written	 by   Matthew  R.  Green
     <mrg@eterna.com.au>  with	unpack	support  written   by	Xin   LI   <del-
     phij@FreeBSD.org>.

BUGS
     According	to  RFC 1952, the recorded file size is stored in a 32-bit inte-
     ger, therefore, it cannot represent files larger than 4GB.  This limitation
     also applies to -l option of gzip utility.

FreeBSD ports 15.1		November 2, 2022			 GZIP(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gunzip&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+15.1-RELEASE+and+Ports>

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