uncompress .tar.z

**jimbaloo** · 01-13-2006

I have large file that is labeled .tar.z. When I try to untar this nothing seems to happen, and when I try to unzip it I am told that it is not a zip file.
I am using FC4 which doesn't seem to have the compress utility and I am having trouble finding anything that will unzip, or untar, this file.
Can somebody suggest a solution, please?
Thanks

**bryansmith** · 01-13-2006

http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/procedures/tar.Z.html#2.1 - That tells you how to decompress it.

Bryan

**jimbaloo** · 01-13-2006

Fedora does not have the compress utility and the only version I can find is ncompress, which won't compile on my system. When I try uncompress I get the unknown command message

**bryansmith** · 01-13-2006

Try:

Code:

gzip -d <archive>

and then decompress the resulting tar archive.

Bryan

**jimbaloo** · 01-13-2006

Code:

[jpq04@localhost Job]$ gzip -d Job3-808235\ Party\ Line\ Brochure.tar.z

gzip: Job3-808235 Party Line Brochure.tar.z: not in gzip format

The file is supposed to contain graphic art for some kind of brochure but the people who supplied the disc neglected to tell anyone what compression format was used. I think it may have been done on a Mac but that's entirely supposition.
The trailing z is in lower case; the only thing I found that was similar was a frontend for compress, uncompress, gzip, bzip, tar, zip, and unzip.

**spoon!** · 01-13-2006

Originally Posted by jimbaloo

Fedora does not have the compress utility and the only version I can find is ncompress, which won't compile on my system. When I try uncompress I get the unknown command message

Yes it does, in the "ncompress" package, which may not be installed by default. So install it with

Code:

yum install ncompress

and then try using tar to uncompress and extract it with

Code:

tar xvZf Job3-808235\ Party\ Line\ Brochure.tar.z

**jimbaloo** · 01-14-2006

Well, finally got ncompress installed only to find that that's not what the compression is either.

**bryansmith** · 01-14-2006

From www.gzip.org, try:

Code:

zcat file.tar.Z | tar xvf -

Bryan

**spoon!** · 01-14-2006

run file on it and see what it says:

Code:

file Job3-808235\ Party\ Line\ Brochure.tar.z

**d7thson** · 02-25-2006

It's in the man pages for gzip; here is a partial cut and paste:
gunzip takes a list of files on its command line and replaces each file whose name ends with .gz, -gz, .z, -z,
_z or .Z

gzip compresses but can be coerced into doing other things.
gunzip decompresses

keeping it very simple:
gunzip filename.tar.Z
Best of luck

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