The gunzip command is an antonym command of gzip command. In other words, it decompresses files deflated by the gzip command.
gunzip takes a list of files on its command line and replaces each file whose name ends with .gz, -gz, .z, -z, or _z (ignoring case) and which begins with the correct magic number with an uncompressed file without the original extension. gunzip also recognizes the special extensions .tgz and .taz as shorthands for .tar.gz and .tar.Z respectively.
- Uncompress a file
gunzip filename.gz
- Recursively uncompress content inside a directory, that match extension (suffix) compressed formats accepted by
gunzip:
gunzip -r directory_name/
- Uncompress all files in the current/working directory whose suffix match .tgz:
gunzip -S .tgz *
- List compressed and uncompressed sizes, compression ratio and uncompressed name of input compressed file/s:
gunzip -l file_1 file_2
gunzip [ -acfhklLnNrtvV ] [-S suffix] [ name ... ]
This video shows how to compress and decompress in a Unix shell. It uses gunzip as decompression command.
| Short Flag | Long Flag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| -c | --stdout | write on standard output, keep original files unchanged |
| -h | --help | give help information |
| -k | --keep | keep (don't delete) input files |
| -l | --list | list compressed file contents |
| -q | --quiet | suppress all warnings |
| -r | --recursive | operate recursively on directories |
| -S | --suffix=SUF | use suffix SUF on compressed files |
| --synchronous | synchronous output (safer if system crashes, but slower) | |
| -t | --test | test compressed file integrity |
| -v | --verbose | verbose mode |
| -V | --version | display version number |