compress

Additional Notes

compress creates legacy .Z compressed files. This format is much older than gzip, bzip2, xz, and zstd.

Use it only when working with old systems, legacy software, or historical archives that require .Z files.

Syntax

compress [options] file...
uncompress file.Z...

Parameters

• file: File to compress.
• file.Z: Legacy compressed file to decompress.
• options: Force, verbose, and output controls.

Common Options

• -f: Force compression even if output exists or size is not reduced.
• -v: Verbose output.
• -c: Write output to standard output.
• -b BITS: Set max bits for compression on implementations that support it.

Examples

compress old-data.txt

Create old-data.txt.Z.

uncompress old-data.txt.Z

Decompress a .Z file.

zcat old-data.txt.Z | less

Read legacy compressed text.

Practical Notes

• Prefer gzip, xz, zstd, or bzip2 for new files.
• Default behavior may remove the original after compression.
• Some systems do not install compress by default.