Welcome to File Archiving and Compression Commands.

After watching this

video, you will be able to: Distinguish file archiving from file compression,
create archived
files and unpack them, and apply commands to compress,
decompress, and extract files from archives. Archiving and compression are distinct
processes, which are usually combined. Archiving is the process of storing
information
that you don’t use regularly but want to preserve. An “archive file” is a
collection
of data files and directories that are stored as a single
file. Archiving makes the collection more portable and
serves as a backup in case of loss or corruption. File compression, on the other
hand, involves reducing the size of a file by taking advantage of
redundancy in its information content. The main advantages of compression
include preserving storage space, speeding up file transfers,
and reducing bandwidth loads. Now, suppose you have created a “notes” directory
for keeping track of your course materials. You decide it would be a good idea to
archive
your notes in case you need them in the future. Your “notes” directory tree
has the following structure: It contains two subfolders,
called “math” and “physics,” each of which contains files called by
the same names, “week 1” and “week 2.” Using the LS command with the –R
option, you can recursively list all the directories and files
in your current directory tree. You can see the correspondence with the
graphical representation of the tree, starting with the parent “notes” directory,
the math and physics subdirectories, and the week one and week two files
within the math and physics folders. You can use the “tar,” or “tape archiver”
command to archive and de-archive files and directories.
A popular term for an archived tar file is a ”tar ball.” To archive your
entire notes directory, including its subdirectories and
all files within, enter the command: “tar minus c f,” a name for the archived file,
such as “notes dot tar,” followed by the file or directory you
wish to archive, which is “notes.” The “c” option means ”create a new archive,”
and the “f” flag tells tar to interpret its input from the file rather than from
the default, which is standard input. Entering “L S” shows that your current
directory
now contains the original notes folder as well as the notes.tar archive file. If
you would also like your archive to be compressed, you can enter the
same command, except now you include the “-z” option, which
filters the archive file through a GNU (pr. “geh-noo”) compression program called
g-zip. Adding the suffix “dot g z” to the output
name, ensures that Windows-based programs, for example, will correctly
recognize the file type. Entering “L S” now shows the compressed “notes
dot tar dot gz” file that you created. You can check the contents
of your archived notes file by calling tar on your "notes" tar ball
with the “minus T,” or "list" option. This lists all the files and
directories in your tar ball. And as expected, it has the same
structure as your original notes folder, with "notes" as the parent directory,
"math" and "physics" as subdirectories, and the week 1 and week 2
files at the terminal nodes. You can also unpack, or “de-archive” your
archived files using the tar command. You can enter "tar minus x f" followed by
the archive file name, "notes dot tar", plus an optional destination name, for
example,
"notes," which happens to be the default. The "minus x“ option tells tar to extract
file and directory objects from the archive. Now if you enter "L S minus R," you
can
see that the archived notes folder has been de-archived into a parent folder
called notes. subfolders called “math” and “physics,” and the four week one and
two files you started with. This verifies that the original structure of
your "notes" directory is intact. Similarly, you can decompress a "tar dot
gz" file and extract the files from it. To unpack and decompress the
notes.tar.gz file, you can enter “tar minus x z f” followed by
the compressed archive file name, “notes tar dot g z,” and an optional destination
folder, “notes.” Again, by entering “L S minus R,” you can see the directories
and files have been unpacked as expected. You
can use the “zip” command to compress files and directories and package
them into a single archive. Notice the order of operations
that zip implements. Zip compresses files prior to bundling them, Whereas tar, with
the “minus z option,” achieves compression by applying “g zip”
on the entire tarball, but only after bundling it. To compress your “notes”
directory
and package it to a “zip” file, enter “zip notes dot
zip notes.” And after entering “L S,” you can see that the notes.zip archive has
been created. The “unzip” command, as you might guess, extracts compressed files
from a zip archive and decompresses them. To unzip
your notes.zip file, simply enter “unzip notes dot zip”. After
entering “L S minus R,” You can see that unzip has created your notes folder, and
unpacked
your directories and your “week one and two” files, as expected. In this video you
learned that: The main advantages of file compression include preserving storage
space,
speeding up file transfers, and reducing bandwidth loads. You
can use the “zip” command to compress files and directories and package them
into a single archive of compressed files. You can use tar to archive files and
directories
into a tarball, and optionally apply gzip compression to the tarball file. You
can use unzip to unpack and decompress a zipped archive. And finally,
you can use tar to decompress and unpack a tar.gz archive.