-------------------------------------------------------------------------

		      (De)compression Procedures
		      --------------------------

In order to save storage capacity on our disks and to decrease
transmission bandwidth, we store files in a compressed format. The
following table provides instructions how to convert files from
compressed to original format and vice versa, and how to view
compressed files without explicit file conversion.

We use the UNIX utility compress(1) for compression.

convert file format	command			man page
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
file.Z	-> file		uncompress file		compress(1)
file.gz	-> file		gunzip file		gzip(1)
file.Z	-> file.gz	znew			znew(1)
file	-> file.Z	compress file		compress(1)
file	-> file.gz	gzip file		gzip(1)
file.tar-> file(s)	tar xvf file.tar	tar(1)

view compressed file	command			man page
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
file.Z			zcat file	 	compress(1)
file.gz			zcat file 		gzip(1)
file.gz			gunzip -c file		gzip(1)

file.Z			zmore file.Z		zmore(1)
file.gz			zmore file.gz		zmore(1)

file.tar-> tab.of cont.	tar tvf file.tar	tar(1)


Files that were archived with tar and afterwards compressed, can be
recovered in the reverse order. The extensions .tgz and .taz are
shorthands for .tar.gz and .tar.Z.

The GNU tools are available via anonymous ftp from the master archive
	prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu.
However there are *plenty* of mirror sites around the globe.


Local users (Purdue users) of the archive can get automatic compression
or decompression when downloading files.  To do this, specify the name of
a file to fetch with (or without) the appropriate suffix.  For instance,
to download file foo.Z and decompress during transfer, simply 
"get foo".