UCSB Biogeography Lab

UCSB Biogeography Laboratory FTP Help

What format are those files ending in ".gz" in?

Some of the data on our FTP archive have been compressed with gzip. Gzip is a public domain compression program available for unix, ms-dos and mac platforms which is similar in behavior to the unix "compress/uncompress" programs. You can obtain your own copy of gzip for your particular machine type from our archive, or read up on gzip first.

What is "tar" format?

Tar is an archive program which allows the grouping of several files into a single file. It is similar in nature to pkzip for MS-DOS machines, but without the compression. If a file from our site ends in ".tar" it needs to have its files extracted from it. Tar is most often found on unix platforms, but we have versions for MS-DOS and macs.

What do I do when a file ends in ".tar.gz"?

When a file ends in ".tar.gz" it is a gzip compressed tar file. First uncompress it with gzip, then extract it from the archive with tar. On my unix machine, I could type

gzip -dc FILE.tar.gz | tar xvf -

to decompress and extract the contents from the tar file in one step.



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	UCSB Biogeography Laboratory FTP Help What format are those files ending in ".gz" in? Some of the data on our FTP archive have been compressed with gzip. Gzip is a public domain compression program available for unix, ms-dos and mac platforms which is similar in behavior to the unix "compress/uncompress" programs. You can obtain your own copy of gzip for your particular machine type from our archive, or read up on gzip first. What is "tar" format? Tar is an archive program which allows the grouping of several files into a single file. It is similar in nature to pkzip for MS-DOS machines, but without the compression. If a file from our site ends in ".tar" it needs to have its files extracted from it. Tar is most often found on unix platforms, but we have versions for MS-DOS and macs. What do I do when a file ends in ".tar.gz"? When a file ends in ".tar.gz" it is a gzip compressed tar file. First uncompress it with gzip, then extract it from the archive with tar. On my unix machine, I could type `gzip -dc FILE.tar.gz \| tar xvf -` to decompress and extract the contents from the tar file in one step.
	Email stoms@bren.ucsb.edu