Working with zcat, zmore and zless Command in Linux

Compression means to keep files together in an archive and to reduce the size of files. Gzip a.k.a. Gunzip is a command in Linux which is used to compress and decompress the files. So in case, you compressed a very large file with gzip and you just want to see what are the contents of the file. As in this case decompression of the file is going to take a lot of time, so in order to save time and view files without decompressing them “zcat” command is used.

Working with zcat command

1. To display contents of a Gzipped file. 

$zcat filename.gz

This will print all the contents of the compressed file. 

Note: In this case the, name of file is filename.gz. 

2. To display contents of multiple compressed files. 

$zcat file1.gz file2.gz

It display contents of multiple files together. 

Note: In this case the, name of file is file1.gz and file2.gz. 

3. To read compressed data even from a terminal and even it is compressed or not. 

$zcat -f filename.gz

This displays the content of the file even if the content is binary or is in an encrypted form. 

Note: In this case the, name of file is filename.gz. 

4. To paginate the output. 

$zless filename.gz

$zmore filename.gz

These are the commands used for paginating the output. 

Note: In this case the, name of file is filename.gz. 

5. To get the properties of the compressed file.  

$zcat -l filename.gz

This will display the properties of files like compressed and uncompressed ratio and uncompressed name etc. 

Note: In this case the, name of file is filename.gz. 

6. To suppress all warnings.  

$zcat -q filename.gz

This will suppress all the warnings that will occur in between the execution of the command.