zcat

Zcat is a command line tool used in Unix-like operating systems to display or manipulate compressed files. It stands for "zipped cat" and is a compressed file viewer similar to the cat command.

The primary purpose of zcat is to view the contents of compressed files without having to decompress them. It reads the compressed file and writes the decompressed data to the standard output.

Zcat supports various file compression formats such as gzip (.gz), compress (.Z), and pack (.z). It automatically detects the compression format based on the file extension and decompresses accordingly.

When used with the cat command, zcat can also concatenate multiple compressed files and display their combined contents. This can be useful when dealing with large compressed log files or archives split into multiple parts.

Zcat can be used in pipelines to process compressed data on-the-fly. For example, it can be used to extract specific data from a compressed file and pass it to another command for further processing.

Zcat does not modify or decompress the original compressed file. It operates in a read-only mode, making it convenient for quickly browsing through compressed files without the need for additional disk space.

The output of zcat can be redirected to a file using the standard output redirection operators (>, >>) to create a new uncompressed file.

The zcat command is part of the GNU core utilities package and is available by default on most Unix-like systems. It is a simple and efficient tool for handling compressed files on the command line.

In addition to the decompression capabilities, zcat also provides basic functionality for inspecting compressed file metadata, such as file permissions, timestamps, and compression ratio.

Overall, zcat offers a convenient way to view and work with compressed files directly from the command line, making it a valuable tool for system administrators, developers, and data analysts.