How to compress files in linux (Fedora/Centos/RHEL)

How to compress files in linux (Fedora/Centos/RHEL)

We can use tar command to compress the files or directories.

GNU 'tar' is used to save many files together into a single tape or disk archive, and also can restore individual files from the archive.

tar [OPTION...] [FILE]...

-c, --create: create a new archive

-f, --file=ARCHIVE: use archive file or device ARCHIVE

Below command is used to compress the test1 directory into archive file.

$ tar -cf test1.tar test1

$ ls

test1 test1.tar

Below command is used to compress the test1 directory into archive file.

$ tar -cf test2.tar.xz test2

$ ls

test1 test1.tar test2 test2.tar.xz

Lets delete test1 and test2 directories,

$ rm -rf test1 test2

Now extract the test1.tar and test2.tar.xz archive files,

we can use same tar command with option -x,

$ tar -xf test1.tar
$tar -xf test2.tar.xz

Lets see the extract directories in current directory,

$ ls
test1 test2 test1.tar test2.tar.xz

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