Compress or decompress named file(s)

SYNTAX
gzip options …

OPTIONS

–stdout
–to-stdout
-c
Write output on standard output; keep original files unchanged.
If there are several input files, the output consists of a
sequence of independently compressed members. To obtain better
compression, concatenate all input files before compressing them.

–decompress
–uncompress
-d
Decompress.

–force
-f
Force compression or decompression even if the file has multiple
links or the corresponding file already exists, or if the
compressed data is read from or written to a terminal. If the
input data is not in a format recognized by &qt;gzip&qt;&qt;, and if the
option –stdout is also given, copy the input data without change
to the standard ouput: let &qt;zcat&qt;&qt; behave as &qt;cat&qt;&qt;. If &qt;-f&qt;&qt; is not
given, and when not running in the background, &qt;gzip&qt;&qt; prompts to
verify whether an existing file should be overwritten.

–help
-h
Print a help message describing the options, then quit.

–list
-l
For each compressed file, list the following fields:

compressed size: size of the compressed file
uncompressed size: size of the uncompressed file
ratio: compression ratio (0.0&qt; if unknown)
uncompressed_name: name of the uncompressed file

The uncompressed size is given as &qt;-1&qt;&qt; for files not
in &qt;gzip&qt;&qt; format.

–license
-L
Display the &qt;gzip&qt;&qt; license then quit.

–no-name
-n
When compressing, do not save the original file name and time
stamp by default. (The original name is always saved if the name
had to be truncated.) When decompressing, do not restore the
original file name if present (remove only the &qt;gzip&qt;&qt; suffix from
the compressed file name) and do not restore the original time
stamp if present (copy it from the compressed file). This option
is the default when decompressing.

–name
-N
When compressing, always save the original file name and time
stamp; this is the default. When decompressing, restore the
original file name and time stamp if present. This option is
useful on systems which have a limit on file name length or when
the time stamp has been lost after a file transfer.

–quiet
-q
Suppress all warning messages.

–recursive
-r
Travel the directory structure recursively. If any of the file
names specified on the command line are directories, &qt;gzip&qt;&qt; will
descend into the directory and compress all the files it finds
there (or decompress them in the case of &qt;gunzip&qt;&qt;).

–suffix SUF
-S SUF
Use suffix &qt;SUF&qt;&qt; instead of &qt;.gz&qt;&qt;. Any suffix can be given, but
suffixes other than &qt;.z&qt;&qt; and &qt;.gz&qt;&qt; should be avoided to avoid
confusion when files are transferred to other systems. A null
suffix forces gunzip to try decompression on all given files
regardless of suffix, as in:

gunzip -S &qt; * (*.* for MSDOS)

Previous versions of gzip used the &qt;.z&qt;&qt; suffix. This was changed
to avoid a conflict with &qt;pack&qt;&qt;.

–test
-t
Test. Check the compressed file integrity.

–verbose
-v
Verbose. Display the name and percentage reduction for each file
compressed.

–version
-V
Version. Display the version number and compilation options, then
quit.

–fast
–best
-N
Regulate the speed of compression using the specified digit N,
where &qt;-1&qt;&qt; or &qt;–fast&qt;&qt; indicates the fastest compression method
(less compression) and &qt;–best&qt;&qt; or &qt;-9&qt;&qt; indicates the slowest
compression method (optimal compression). The default
compression level is &qt;-6&qt;&qt; (that is, biased towards high
compression at expense of speed).&qt;gunzip&qt;&qt; can currently decompress files created by &qt;gzip&qt;&qt;, &qt;zip&qt;&qt;, &qt;compress&qt;&qt; or &qt;pack&qt;&qt;. The detection of the input format is automatic.

&qt;gzip&qt;&qt; is designed as a complement to &qt;tar&qt;&qt;, not as a replacement.