How to compress/uncompress files on Linux

Following are some of the common commands on how to compress and uncompress files on Linux.

*.tar.gz

tar -czvf name-of-archive.tar.gz /path/to/directory-or-file

-c: Create an archive.
-z: Compress the archive with gzip.
-v: “verbose” mode. The v is always optional in these commands, but it’s helpful.
-f: Allows you to specify the filename of the archive.

tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz -C directory-name

-x: Uncompress the archive with gzip.
-C: This is optional, it defines a specific directory in which the contents will be extracted.

zip -r ./file.zip <dir_to_compress>

unzip ./file.zip

Name	Summary
Unpack *.tar	`tar -xvf ./file.tar`
Unpack *.tar.gz	`tar xvzf ./file.tar.gz`
Unpack *.rar	`unrar e ./file.rar`
Unpack *.zip	`unzip ./file.zip`
Unpack *.gz	`gunzip ./file.gz; gzip -d file.gz`
Unpack *.bz2	`tar -jxvf file.tar.bz2 -C /tmp/extract_here/`
Unpack *.7z	`7z e ./file.7z` install p7zip first
Unpack *.xz	`tar -xf ./file.tar.xz`
Unpack *.jar	`jar -xvf ./file.jar`
Unpack *.war	`jar -xvf ./file.war`
Unpack *.tgz	`tar -xf ./file.tgz`

Name	Command
Pack to *.tar	`tar -cvf ./file.tar <dir_to_compress>`
Pack to *.gz	`tar -zcvf ./newfile.tar.gz <dir_to_compress>`
Pack to *.tgz	`tar -cvzf backup.tgz *`
Pack to *.bz2	`tar -cvf ./file.tar.bz2 <dir_to_compress>`
Pack to *.zip	`zip -r ./file.zip <dir_to_compress>`

Name	Command
Pack with exclude	`tar --exclude ".git" -cvf file.tar <dir_to_compress>`
Remove a single file from tarball	`tar --delete -f file.tar file1.txt`
Add file to tarball. -r indicates append	`tar -rf file.tar file1.txt`