zcat(1)                                                             zcat(1)

NAME
     zcat - display compressed files in expanded form

SYNOPSIS
     zcat[ file] ...

DESCRIPTION
     zcat takes files that have been compressed with compress and copies
     them to standard output in their original form. The compressed file
     remains compressed. Files compressed with compress can be restored to
     their original form with the uncompress command.

     zcat, together with compress and uncompress, forms a group of commands
     used to compress and expand files and to display files in expanded
     form. zcat is identical to uncompress -c. Similar services are pro-
     vided by another group of commands, pack, unpack and pcat.

OPERANDS
     file Name of the compressed file to be output in its original form.
          You can name any number of files.

          You may enter the name of the file with or without the .Z exten-
          sion; if you omit the extension, zcat automatically searches for
          the appropriate .Z file.

ERROR MESSAGES
     The following errors result in the failure of the zcat command.

     filename: no such file or directory
          The file you specified does not exist.

     filename: not in compressed format
          The file you specified was not compressed using compress.

     filename: compressed with xxbits, can only handle yybits
          The file was compressed by a program which could handle more bits
          than the compression code on this machine. You may be able to
          recompress the file with a smaller number of bits.

     uncompress: corrupt input
          There has been a SIGSEGV signal (addressing error due to segmen-
          tation violation). This usually means that the input file is cor-
          rupted.

LOCALE
     The LCMESSAGES environment variable governs the language in which
     message texts are displayed. If LCMESSAGES is undefined or is defined
     as the null string, it defaults to the value of LANG. If LANG is like-
     wise undefined or null, the system acts as if it were not internation-
     alized.





Page 1                       Reliant UNIX 5.44                Printed 11/98

zcat(1)                                                             zcat(1)

     The LCALL environment variable governs the entire locale. LCALL
     takes precedence over all the other environment variables which affect
     internationalization.

EXAMPLES
     The file zcatex is printed with cat, compressed with compress, and
     then output again with zcat.

     $ zcat zcatex
     I have still not been compressed!

     $ compress -fv zcatex
     zcatex: Compression: -16.12% -- replaced with zcatex.Z

     $ zcat zcatex.Z
     (Contents of file)

SEE ALSO
     cat(1), compress(1), pack(1), pcat(1), uncompress(1), unpack(1).



































Page 2                       Reliant UNIX 5.44                Printed 11/98