syntax for zipping a file ?

[Birbone]

I have a text file that won't zip. I can get it to compress but I need it zipped. Do you ever feel like you're missing the simple answer? Anyway, it keeps telling me there is nothing to do. What am I missing?

> ll dirlst*
-rw-rw-rw- 1747101 Jun 11 10:05 dirlst1
-rw-rw-rw- 1747101 Jun 11 10:05 dirlst2.txt
> compress dirlst1
> ll dirlst*
-rw-rw-rw- 564238 Jun 11 10:05 dirlst1.Z
-rw-rw-rw- 1747101 Jun 11 10:05 dirlst2.txt
> zip -k -n dirlst2.txt dirlst2.zip
zip error: Nothing to do! (dirlst2.zip)


-Bobby
bwgunn@icqmail.com

 

[iaguy]

zip??

I'm only on 10.2, so maybe zip is a 11.x command. Could you be looking for compress or gzip?

lynn

 

[bi]

iaguy, zip doesn't come with the standard OS, as far as I know. You can get a shareware/freeware utility that will give you that functionality.

Birbone, the zip utility and the compress utility appear to be using different algorithms and zip doesn't think it can compress the file any more than it is, I am guessing. I'm not sure why you have to use zip, though. If you are sending the archive to someone on an NT system, their winzip app should be able to handle a .Z (compressed) archive. (Mine does.) If they don't have a Win zip app that can handle compressed files, perhaps they should update their app. And if you are sending the archive to someone with a unix system, I would think they would prefer compressed, as that is native to Unix.