Dos zip command example

This command prevents needing to decompress and recompress the entire archive. This command will not work with solid archives. Another command that we see on the command line is the switch.

The switch is composed of a switch specifier and the name of the switch. Switches often look like this:. After that, you can use any of the commands listed above. Even without a GUI, you can use all the features of 7Zip on the command line. Did we miss any commands on our list?

Let us know by leaving us a message in the comment section below. Thanks for the guide, looks really helpful! Though I will need some practice before I can say that I can handle it well. However, maybe you should make one minor correction: The commandline tool in your guide is 7za. With this two minor adjustments, the guide would be great!

I agree with Ramona. Insufficient examples on how to combine the switches. Please apply patience and write for ignorant users and with more examples. You can use the e or x commands to extract ZIP files. A change in timezone since the original archive was created could result in no times matching and all files being included. A possible approach to backing up a directory might be to create a normal archive of the contents of the directory as a full backup, then use this option to create incremental backups.

Encrypt the contents of the zip archive using a password that is entered on the terminal in response to a prompt this will not be echoed; if standard error is not a tty , zip will exit with an error. The password prompt is repeated to save the user from typing errors.

Replace freshen an existing entry in the zip archive only if it has been modified more recently than the version already in the zip archive; unlike the update option -u this will not add files that are not already in the zip archive.

For example: zip -f foo This command should be run from the same directory from which the original zip command was run, since paths stored in zip archives are always relative. Note that the timezone environment variable TZ should be set according to the local timezone for the -f , -u and -o options to work correctly.

The reasons behind this are somewhat subtle but have to do with the differences between the Unix-format file times always in GMT and most of the other operating systems always local time and the necessity to compare the two. Leave off the DDD if there is no daylight savings time. Fix the zip archive. The -F option can be used if some portions of the archive are missing, but requires a reasonably intact central directory.

The input archive is scanned as usual, but zip ignores some problems. The resulting archive should be valid, but any inconsistent entries will be left out. When doubled as in -FF , the archive is scanned from the beginning and zip scans for special signatures to identify the limits between the archive members. The single -F is more reliable if the archive is not too much damaged, so try this option first. If the archive is too damaged or the end has been truncated, you must use -FF.

This option is a change from zip 2. The -F option now more reliably fixes archives with minor damage and the -FF option is needed to fix archives where -F might have been sufficient before. Neither option will recover archives that have been incorrectly transferred in ascii mode instead of binary.

After the repair, the -t option of unzip may show that some files have a bad CRC. Such files cannot be recovered; you can remove them from the archive using the -d option of zip.

Note that -FF may have trouble fixing archives that include an embedded zip archive that was stored without compression in the archive and, depending on the damage, it may find the entries in the embedded archive rather than the archive itself. Try -F first as it does not have this problem. The format of the fix commands have changed. For example, to fix the damaged archive foo. If this doesn't work, as when the archive is truncated , or if some entries you know are in the archive are missed, then try zip -FF foo --out foofixfix The -FF option may create an inconsistent archive.

Depending on what is damaged, you can then use the -F option to fix that archive. A split archive with missing split files can be fixed using -F if you have the last split of the archive the. If this file is missing, you must use -FF to fix the archive, which will prompt you for the splits you have.

Currently the fix options can't recover entries that have a bad checksum or are otherwise damaged. This option tells zip to read the contents of any FIFO it finds. Synchronize the contents of an archive with the files on the OS. Normally when an archive is updated, new files are added and changed files are updated but files that no longer exist on the OS are not deleted from the archive.

This option enables a new mode that checks entries in the archive against the file system. If the file time and file size of the entry matches that of the OS file, the entry is copied from the old archive instead of being read from the file system and compressed.

If the OS file has changed, the entry is read and compressed as usual. If the entry in the archive does not match a file on the OS, the entry is deleted. Enabling this option should create archives that are the same as new archives, but since existing entries are copied instead of compressed, updating an existing archive with -FS can be much faster than creating a new archive. Also consider using -u for updating an archive. For this option to work, the archive should be updated from the same directory it was created in so the relative paths match.

If few files are being copied from the old archive, it may be faster to create a new archive instead. A change in timezone since the original archive was created could result in no times matching and recompression of all files. This option deletes files from the archive.

If you need to preserve the original archive, make a copy of the archive first or use the --out option to output the updated archive to a new file. Even though it may be slower, creating a new archive with a new archive name is safer, avoids mismatches between archive and OS paths, and is preferred.

Grow append to the specified zip archive, instead of creating a new one. If this operation fails, zip attempts to restore the archive to its original state. If the restoration fails, the archive might become corrupted. This option is ignored when there's no existing archive or when at least one archive member must be updated or deleted.

Display the zip help information this also appears if zip is run with no arguments. Display extended help including more on command line format, pattern matching, and more obscure options.

Include only the specified files, as in: zip -r foo. The backslash avoids the shell file name substitution, so that the name matching is performed by zip at all directory levels. The long option form of the first example is: zip -r foo. Though the command syntax used to require -i at the end of the command line, this version actually allows -i or --include anywhere.

The list of files terminates at the next argument starting with - , the end of the command line, or the list terminator an argument that is just. There must be a space between the option and the first file of a list. The single value forms are not recommended because they can be confusing and, in particular, the -ifile format can cause problems if the first letter of file combines with i to form a two-letter option starting with i. Use -sc to see how your command line will be parsed.

Also possible: zip -r foo. Files to -i and -x are patterns matching internal archive paths. See -R for more on patterns. When used, zip will not consider Image files eg. For example, if you have SparkFS loaded, zipping a Spark archive will result in a zipfile containing a directory and its content while using the ' I ' option will result in a zipfile containing a Spark archive. Obviously this second case will also be obtained without the ' I ' option if SparkFS isn't loaded.

On VMS or Windows systems, ignore case when matching archive entries. This option is only available on systems where the case of files is ignored. On systems with case-insensitive file systems, case is normally ignored when matching files on the file system but is not ignored for -f freshen , -d delete , -U copy , and similar modes when matching against archive entries currently -f ignores case on VMS because archive entries can be from systems where case does matter and names that are the same except for case can exist in an archive.

The -ic option makes all matching case insensitive. This option can result in multiple archive entries matching a command line pattern. Store just the name of a saved file without the path , and do not store directory names. By default, zip will store the full path, relative to the current directory. The complete path including volume will be stored. By default the relative path will be stored. This option should not be used on binary files. This option is to ensure that unzip -a on Unix will get back an exact copy of the original file, to undo the effect of zip -l.

See -ll for how binary files are handled. Open a logfile at the given path. By default any existing file at that location is overwritten, but the -la option will result in an existing file being opened and the new log information appended to any existing information. Only warnings and errors are written to the log unless the -li option is also given, then all information messages are also written to the log. Include information messages, such as file names being zipped, in the log.

The default is to only include the command line, any warnings and errors, and the final status. If the file is converted and the file is later determined to be binary a warning is issued and the file is probably corrupted. In this release if -ll detects binary in the first buffer read from a file, zip now issues a warning and skips line end conversion on the file. This check seems to catch all binary files tested, but the original check remains and if a converted file is later determined to be binary that warning is still issued.

A new algorithm is now being used for binary detection that should allow line end conversion of text files in UTF-8 and similar encodings. If a directory becomes empty after removal of the files, the directory is also removed. No deletions are done until zip has created the archive without error. This option is useful for conserving disk space , but is potentially dangerous so it is recommended to use it in combination with -T to test the archive before removing all input files.

All input patterns must match at least one file and all input files found must be readable. Normally when an input pattern does not match a file the "name not matched" warning is issued and when an input file has been found but later is missing or not readable a missing or not readable warning is issued.

In either case zip continues creating the archive, with missing or unreadable new files being skipped and files already in the archive remaining unchanged. After the archive is created, if any files were not readable, zip returns the OPEN error code 18 on most systems instead of the normal success return 0 on most systems.

With -MM set, zip exits as soon as an input pattern is not matched whenever the "name not matched" warning would be issued or when an input file is not readable.

In either case zip exits with an OPEN error and no archive is created. This option is useful when a known list of files is to be zipped so any missing or unreadable files will result in an error. It is less useful when used with wildcards, but zip will still exit with an error if any input pattern doesn't match at least one file and if any matched files are unreadable.

If you want to create the archive anyway and only need to know if files were skipped, don't use -MM and just check the return code.

Also -lf could be useful. Do not attempt to compress files named with the given suffixes. The suffixes are separated by either colons or semicolons. For example: zip -rn. By default, zip does not compress files with extensions in the list.

Such files are stored directly in the output archive. Do not perform internal wildcard processing shell processing of wildcards is still done by the shell unless the arguments are escaped. Useful if a list of paths is being read and no wildcard substitution is desired. They can be restored using the -N option of unzip. If -c is used also, you are prompted for comments only for those files that do not have filenotes.

Set the "last modified" time of the zip archive to the latest oldest "last modified" time found among the entries in the zip archive. This option can be used without any other operations, if desired. For example: zip -o foo Process the archive changes as usual, but instead of updating the existing archive, output the new archive to output-file.

Useful for updating an archive without changing the existing archive and the input archive must be a different file than the output archive. This option can be used to create updated split archives. It can also be used with -U to copy entries from an existing archive to a new archive. Another use is converting zip files from one split size to another.

See -U below. Also: zip -s 0 split. Include relative file paths as part of the names of files stored in the archive. This option is the default. The -j option junks the paths and just stores the names of the files. Use password to encrypt zipfile entries if any. Many multi-user operating systems provide ways for any user to see the current command line of any other user; even on stand-alone systems there is always the threat of over-the-shoulder peeking.

Storing the plaintext password as part of a command line in an automated script is even worse. Whenever possible, use the non-echoing, interactive prompt to enter passwords. And where security is truly important, use strong encryption such as Pretty Good Privacy instead of the relatively weak standard encryption provided by zipfile utilities.

Quiet mode; eliminate informational messages and comment prompts. Useful, for example, in shell scripts and background tasks. Travel the directory structure recursively; for example: zip -r foo.

If you want to include only a specific subset of the files in directory foo and its subdirectories, use the -i option to specify the pattern of files to be included. Let say you are going to zip all the files in the present directory and want to exclude few files which are not needed. So you can exclude these files which are not needed using the -x option. Using the Verbose mode option we will print diagnostic version information. This option will display the progress indicator during compression and request verbose information about the zip structure.

Now we have understood the depression unzip and compression zip concept and we have seen how to manipulate compressed files using different options. ZIP is a perfect technique when there is less bandwidth or internet speed and you want to transfer a bunch of files. Then now using this command you can zip and transfer the files in a very efficient manner.

This is a guide to Zip Command in Linux. Here we discuss the syntax to extract zip files along with the different commands of zip in Linux. You may also look at the following articles to learn more —. Submit Next Question. By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.