[X-Unix] Compressing files

[Chuck Toporek]

On Mar 15, 2005, at 10:12 AM, Mark Philip wrote:

> Hi all,
> I've got a directory called Timothy Ng, which contains lots of JPEG  
> images. I wish to compress these images into a ZIP file, put the ZIP  
> file into another directory (say Desktop) and then email this file to  
> a user who is running Windows XP. I used to do this a while ago but  
> have forgotten how to do this using TAR. Can anyone help me out?

Using tar, and assuming that the "Timothy Ng" folder resides in your  
Pictures folder, you can do something like this:

     tar cvfz ~/Desktop/timng_images.tgz ~/Pictures/Timothy\ Ng

If you want to use Zip instead, use the following:

     zip ~/Desktop/timng_images.zip ~/Pictures/Timothy\ Ng/*.*

Either of these commands will archive the files in the "Timothy Ng"  
folder (in .tgz or .zip format, respectively), and save that archive to  
your Desktop. From there, all you need to do is attach the archive to  
your email message.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that you've said the directory  
contains a lot of images. Some hosts cap in-bound messages at 10MB, so  
you should make sure that your archive is under that limit before you  
send it off, else it could bounce.

HTH,

Chuck

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                     Chuck Toporek, Senior Editor (Macintosh)
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