cli-tarHow do I compress a file with Unix tar gz?

Compressing a file with Unix tar gz is a simple process. To do this, you will need to use the tar command. The tar command allows you to create an archive of multiple files or directories.

To compress a file with tar gz, you will need to use the following command:

tar -czvf filename.tar.gz /path/to/file

The command will create an archive of the file located in the provided path and save it as filename.tar.gz in the current directory. The -c flag indicates that the tar command should create an archive, the -z flag indicates that you want to compress the file with gzip, the -v flag will provide verbose output, and the -f flag indicates the name and location of the archive.

The following is an example of the output you can expect from the command:

adding: path/to/file (deflated 86%)

The output indicates that the file has been added to the archive and compressed with gzip.

The parts of the command are as follows:

• tar: The command to create an archive.
• -c: Flag to indicate that an archive should be created.
• -z: Flag to indicate that the file should be compressed with gzip.
• -v: Flag to provide verbose output.
• -f: Flag to indicate the name and location of the archive.
• filename.tar.gz: The name and location of the archive.
• /path/to/file: The path to the file that should be added to the archive.

For more information about the tar command, see the GNU tar manual.

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