what the best approach in order to compress directory with Hundreds of sub directories

Question

Under /usr/cti/APP_sys, I have hundreds of directories and subdirectories and files, etc.

I wonder what the best approach in order to compress the /usr/cti/APP_sys directory (get the best low capacity of APP_sys).

Meanwhile I use the following command

   tar –zcvf  APP_sys.gz  APP_sys

but my target is to find the best approach in order to get the best low capacity from APP_sys directory.

   tar Common Options:
   -C, --directory DIR
   -f, --file F
   -j, --bzip2
   -p, --preserve-permissions
   -v, --verbose
   -z, --gzip

possible duplicate of Which file compression software for linux offers the highest size reduction? — derobert, Dec 09 '14 at 16:35

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

You can decouple the "package all files together" part from "compress as much as possible" and play around with different compression options to see which has an acceptable trade off between time/memory/size:

tar cvf - ./APP_sys | gzip -9 > APP_sys.tar.gz

Or

tar cvf - ./APP_sys | bzip2 --best > APP_sys.tar.gz

Or

tar cvf - ./APP_sys | xz -9e > APP_sys.tar.xz

Which file compression software for linux offers the highest size reduction?

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 16 '19 at 13:34

0

xz has the best rate of compression i have seen and is installed by default on most solutions.

tar -Jcvf APP_sys.tar.xz /usr/cti/APP_sys

edited Apr 16 '19 at 13:34

Rui F Ribeiro

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answered Dec 09 '14 at 11:02

McParty

1

maybe you need -j not -J ( see tar common options ) – maihabunash Dec 09 '14 at 11:24
Nope, captiatal J - see tar manual, the captial J means you are using xz compression. – McParty Dec 09 '14 at 11:28
I dont have J capital – maihabunash Dec 09 '14 at 11:31
What verstion of tar are you using? run a: tar --version If it is less than 1.27.1 then it might not be there. – McParty Dec 09 '14 at 11:33
see please the falgs that I use for tar in my question – maihabunash Dec 09 '14 at 11:36
If your tar version does not support the capital J flag you can still xz compress this way: tar –cvf APP_sys.tar APP_sys && xz APP_sys.tar – Guido Vaccarella Dec 09 '14 at 13:14

Emmanuel · Answer 3 · 2014-12-09T14:21:08.367

0

The tar command will store one full path for each file. Which can represent a great volume if the files are numerous and the paths are long.

You should try commands that manage a file index like p7zip .

edited Dec 09 '14 at 14:21

answered Dec 09 '14 at 13:10

Emmanuel

4,187

what the best approach in order to compress directory with Hundreds of sub directories

3 Answers3