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PLZIP(1)			  User Commands 			PLZIP(1)

NAME
     plzip - reduces the size of files

SYNOPSIS
     plzip [options] [files]

DESCRIPTION
     Plzip is a massively parallel (multithreaded) implementation of lzip. Plzip
     uses the compression library lzlib.

     Lzip is a lossless data compressor with a user interface similar to the one
     of  gzip  or  bzip2. Lzip uses a simplified form of LZMA (Lempel-Ziv-Markov
     chain-Algorithm) and is designed to achieve complete  interoperability  be-
     tween  implementations.  The maximum dictionary size is 512 MiB so that any
     lzip file can be decompressed on 32-bit machines.	Lzip  provides	accurate
     and  robust 3-factor integrity checking. 'lzip -0' compresses about as fast
     as gzip, while 'lzip -9' compresses most files more than bzip2.  Decompres-
     sion  speed  is  intermediate  between gzip and bzip2. Lzip provides better
     data recovery capabilities than gzip and bzip2.  Lzip  has  been  designed,
     written,  and  tested  with  great  care  to replace gzip and bzip2 as gen-
     eral-purpose compressed format for Unix-like systems.

     Plzip can compress/decompress large files on multiprocessor  machines  much
     faster  than lzip, at the cost of a slightly reduced compression ratio (0.4
     to 2 percent larger compressed files).  Note  that  the  number  of  usable
     threads  is  limited  by file size; on files larger than a few GB plzip can
     use hundreds of processors, but on files smaller than 1  MiB  plzip  is  no
     faster than lzip (not even at compression level -0).  The number of threads
     defaults to the number of processors.

OPTIONS
     -h     display usage help and exit

     --help
	    display full help and exit

     -V, --version
	    output version information and exit

     -a, --trailing-error
	    exit with error status if trailing data

     -B, --data-size=<bytes>
	    set size of input data blocks [2x8=16 MiB]

     -c, --stdout
	    write to standard output, keep input files

     -d, --decompress
	    decompress, test compressed file integrity

     -f, --force
	    overwrite existing output files

     -F, --recompress
	    force re-compression of compressed files

     -k, --keep
	    keep (don't delete) input files

     -l, --list
	    print (un)compressed file sizes

     -m, --match-length=<bytes>
	    set match length limit in bytes [36]

     -n, --threads=<n>
	    set number of (de)compression threads [2]

     -o, --output=<file>
	    write to <file>, keep input files

     -q, --quiet
	    suppress all messages

     -s, --dictionary-size=<bytes>
	    set dictionary size limit in bytes [8 MiB]

     -t, --test
	    test compressed file integrity

     -v, --verbose
	    be verbose (a 2nd -v gives more)

     -0 .. -9
	    set compression level [default 6]

     --loose-trailing
	    allow trailing data seeming corrupt header

     --in-slots=<n>
	    number of 1 MiB input packets buffered [4]

     --out-slots=<n>
	    number of 1 MiB output packets buffered [64]

     --check-lib
	    compare version of lzlib.h with liblz.{a,so}

     If no file names are given, or if a file is '-', plzip compresses or decom-
     presses from standard input to standard output.  Numbers may contain under-
     score  separators	between  groups of digits and may be followed by a SI or
     binary multiplier: 1_234_567kB, 4KiB.  Dictionary sizes 12 to 29 are inter-
     preted as powers of two, meaning 2^12 to 2^29 bytes.

     The bidimensional parameter space of LZMA can't be mapped to a linear scale
     optimal for all files. If your files are large, very repetitive,  etc,  you
     may  need	to use the options --dictionary-size and --match-length directly
     to achieve optimal performance.

     To extract all the files from archive 'foo.tar.lz', use the  commands  'tar
     -xf foo.tar.lz' or 'plzip -cd foo.tar.lz | tar -xf -'.

EXIT STATUS
     0	for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (file not found, invalid
     command-line options, I/O errors, etc), 2 to indicate a corrupt or  invalid
     input  file,  3  for an internal consistency error (e.g., bug) which caused
     plzip to panic.

REPORTING BUGS
     Report bugs to lzip-bug@nongnu.org
     Plzip home page: http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/plzip.html

COPYRIGHT
     Copyright (C) 2009 Laszlo Ersek.
     Copyright (C) 2026 Antonio Diaz Diaz.  License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or
     later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
     This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute  it.   There
     is  NO  WARRANTY,	to  the extent permitted by law.  Using lzlib 1.16 Using
     LZ_API_VERSION = 1016

SEE ALSO
     The full documentation for plzip is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the
     info and plzip programs are properly installed at your site, the command

	    info plzip

     should give you access to the complete manual.

plzip 1.13			   March 2026				PLZIP(1)
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