UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello all

I have about 30 small datafiles .

sample1.dat
sample2.dat
...
..
sample30.dat

when I issue gzip *.dat , I end up with the following

sample1.gz
sample2.gz
...
...
sample30.gz

My goal is to gzip all 30 files into one single file (ex:data1-30.gz) as we do on Windows.

1) Is there a way to achieve this
2) and if (1) is possible ,how do we then gunzip that one single file

Thanks for you time..

To zip:

Code:

tar -cf - *.dat | gzip -c > targz_filename

To unzip:

Code:

gzip -dc targz_filename | tar -xf -

Awesome ...works like a charm ...Thanks for the quick reply .I'm now analyzing the statement step by step, by looking at the man pages.

Thanks again.

there's an alternative, and more simple way of doing this:

Code:

tar -cjf tarbz2_filename *.dat
tar -czf targz_filename *.dat

to deflate:

Code:

tar -xjf tarbz2_filename
tar -xzf targz_filename

if you want to defalte to /home/me/mydir, you can use -C like

Code:

tar -xjf tarbz2_filename -C /home/me/mydir

for more options, check out man pages for tar.

...that is only an alternative for those using the GNU version of tar...

Cheers
ZB