cli-tarHow do I choose between gzip and tar.gz when compressing files?

When compressing files, it is important to choose the right format. Gzip and tar.gz are two popular options for compressing files.

Gzip is a single-file compression algorithm that works well for small files. It is simple to use and can be used with the command line tool gzip:

gzip myfile.txt

This will create a new file called myfile.txt.gz.

Tar.gz, on the other hand, is a combination of the tar archiving utility and gzip compression. It can be used to compress multiple files into a single archive. To use it, the command line tool tar is used:

tar -zcvf myfiles.tar.gz myfile1.txt myfile2.txt

This will create a single file called myfiles.tar.gz containing both myfile1.txt and myfile2.txt.

In general, gzip is the best choice when compressing a single file, while tar.gz is the best choice when compressing multiple files.

Code explanation

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• gzip myfile.txt
• tar -zcvf myfiles.tar.gz myfile1.txt myfile2.txt

## Helpful links

• Gzip Compression
• Tar Compression

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