compress" -- Command" "
Compress a file
ccoommpprreessss [[ --ddffvvcc ]] [[ --bb_n_u_m ]] [[ _f_i_l_e _._._. ]]
compress compresses a file using the
Lempel-Ziv algorithm. With text files and archives, it
often can achieve 50% rate of compression.
If one or more files are specified on the
command, compress compresses them and
appends the suffix ..ZZ onto the end of each compressed file's
name. If no file is specified on the command line,
compress compresses text from the standard
input and writes the compressed text to the standard output.
compress recognizes the following options:
- --bb
- The ``bits'' option. compress uses
the compression level set via the num argument.
Previous releases of compress would only
allow values of num up to 12, with 12 being the
default value if the -b option was not
specified. The version of compress
introduced with COHERENT version 3.1 handles values up to
16, with 12 being the default.
- --cc
- Send output to stdout.
- --dd
- Decompress rather than compress.
- --ff
- Force an output file to be generated even if no space
is saved by compression.
- --vv
- Verbose mode: force compress to write
statistics about its performance.
If you wish to ensure backwards compatibility with previous
releases of COHERENT, do not use compress
with a num value greater than 12.
See Also