Member Avatar for Dani

I didn't realize how to do this until just now so I thought I'd post about it. Suppose you have a directory on your box called "my_files" and you wish to compress it into a zip file. One level above the directory, use the following command

zip -r files.zip my_files/
  • 5 Contributors
  • 4 Replies
  • 179 Views
  • 2 Months Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by i686-linux
Member Avatar for alc6379

that is so Windows...

Just kidding. That works great, but you can squeeze even more compression out of it if you use tar with bzip2 compression:

tar -cvjf files.tar.bz2 my_files/

Zip might get about 2x compression, but I've seen bzip2 get anywhere from 2x to 5x compression. If space is a concern, then I'd check it out.

Member Avatar for Eico

yeah, the whole difference with tar.gz and bzip2 is that bzip2 gives you more compression, so file sizes are small, but bzip2 is a lot more resource intensive when decompressing. So when size is an issue, use bzip2.

Member Avatar for TKSS

I usually use a shoe horn, some baby oil, and a really big mallet. :p

Member Avatar for i686-linux

I usually use a shoe horn, some baby oil, and a really big mallet. :p

But do you prefer a crowbar or a chisel for decompression?:cheesy:

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.