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*nix tgz files
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I''ve always wondered about this:
Why are most compressed files on *nix systems (Linux included) compressed using a combination of tarring and gzip (or other compression scheme)? Why aren''t they zipped in one step?
I assume this is a historic-type thing...
Tar is the utility that places them all in one file. GZip compresses them. You also see tar.bz2 and other tar.___ files, if they were compressed using another utility.
http://druidgames.cjb.net/ (If my website isn''t down, it''s a miracle!)
http://druidgames.cjb.net/ (If my website isn''t down, it''s a miracle!)
This is an example of the UNIX philosophy of having several small utilities, each extremely well suited to a particular task, and capable of being serially linked with each other (via pipes and redirections). It''s an excellent modular design philosphy, and one that you should familiarize yourself with. it allows custom solutions to diverse problems to be rapidly created out of standard system components (have you ever though about the versatility of the shell?)
tar is an archival tool, originally designed for tape backups (Tape ARchiver). It doesn''t compress, it just dumps lots of files together.
gzip, on the other hand, compresses a single file (quite well, I must add), as does bzip.
The reason people use tarballs is because it''s a lot less hassle to compress the individual files, then archive them, and it''s also more effiecent (eash compress file needs a header)
After careful deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that Nazrix is not cool. I am sorry for any inconvienience my previous mistake may have caused. We now return you to the original programming
gzip, on the other hand, compresses a single file (quite well, I must add), as does bzip.
The reason people use tarballs is because it''s a lot less hassle to compress the individual files, then archive them, and it''s also more effiecent (eash compress file needs a header)
After careful deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that Nazrix is not cool. I am sorry for any inconvienience my previous mistake may have caused. We now return you to the original programming
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