Zip Utility

It can be quite useful when submitting an assignment or to organize and archive files to be able to create zip files. Zip files are single files that can contain multiple files. These zip files tend to be smaller as they compress the multiple files to make the newly created zip file easier to transport.

The zip command allows a user to compress a single file, placing it in a .zip file. As with all compression, the size difference between files will vary between extensions.

eos% zip zipfile uncompressedfile

zip can compress multiple files at once using concatenation.

eos % zip zipfile uncompressedfile1 uncompressedfile2

This will create a single file, zipfile.zip, which will contain the compressed information of uncompressedfile1 and uncompressedfile2. So if you need to compress multiple files, this is generally the way to go.

You can decompress the file using the unzip command.

eos% unzip zipfile

This command will decompress the .zip file and and place the files in the current directory. This will leave you with at least two files, the newly placed decompressed file and the .zip file.