compress(1)

NAME

     compress, uncompress, zcat - compress a file  using  modified  Lempel-Ziv
     coding

SYNOPSIS

     compress [-cdfv] [file] ...

OPTIONS

     -c   Put output on stdout instead of on file.Z

     -d   Decompress instead of compress

     -f   Force output even if there is no saving

     -v   Verbose mode

EXAMPLES

     compress <infile >outfile
                         # Compress 1 file

     compress x y z      # Compress 3 files to x.Z, y.Z, and z.Z

     compress -d file.Z  # Decompress file.Z to file

DESCRIPTION

     The listed files (or stdin, if none are given) are compressed  using  the
     Ziv-Lempel  algorithm.   If  the  output  is  smaller than the input, the
     output is put on file.Z or stdout if no files are listed. If compress  is
     linked  to  uncompress,  the  latter  is  the same as giving the -d flag.
     Similarly, a link to zcat decompresses to stdout.  The MINIX  version  of
     compress uses 13-bit compression.  This means that when compressing files
     on other systems for transmission to MINIX,  be  sure  that  only  13-bit
     compression is used.  On many systems, the default is 16-bit (too big).

SEE ALSO

     tar(1).