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.\" DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE! It was generated by help2man 1.49.2.
.TH LZIP "1" "March 2026" "lzip 1.26" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
lzip \- reduces the size of files
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B lzip
[\fI\,options\/\fR] [\fI\,files\/\fR]
.SH DESCRIPTION
Lzip is a lossless data compressor with a user interface similar to the one
of gzip or bzip2. Lzip uses a simplified form of LZMA (Lempel\-Ziv\-Markov
chain\-Algorithm) and is designed to achieve complete interoperability
between implementations. The maximum dictionary size is 512 MiB so that any
lzip file can be decompressed on 32\-bit machines. Lzip provides accurate and
robust 3\-factor integrity checking. 'lzip \fB\-0\fR' compresses about as fast as
gzip, while 'lzip \fB\-9\fR' compresses most files more than bzip2. Decompression
speed is intermediate between gzip and bzip2. Lzip provides better data
recovery capabilities than gzip and bzip2. Lzip has been designed, written,
and tested with great care to replace gzip and bzip2 as general\-purpose
compressed format for Unix\-like systems.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-h\fR
display usage help and exit
.TP
\fB\-\-help\fR
display full help and exit
.TP
\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
output version information and exit
.TP
\fB\-a\fR, \fB\-\-trailing\-error\fR
exit with error status if trailing data
.TP
\fB\-b\fR, \fB\-\-member\-size=\fR<bytes>
set member size limit of multimember files
.TP
\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-stdout\fR
write to standard output, keep input files
.TP
\fB\-d\fR, \fB\-\-decompress\fR
decompress, test compressed file integrity
.TP
\fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-force\fR
overwrite existing output files
.TP
\fB\-F\fR, \fB\-\-recompress\fR
force re\-compression of compressed files
.TP
\fB\-k\fR, \fB\-\-keep\fR
keep (don't delete) input files
.TP
\fB\-l\fR, \fB\-\-list\fR
print (un)compressed file sizes
.TP
\fB\-m\fR, \fB\-\-match\-length=\fR<bytes>
set match length limit in bytes [36]
.TP
\fB\-o\fR, \fB\-\-output=\fR<file>
write to <file>, keep input files
.TP
\fB\-q\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR
suppress all messages
.TP
\fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-dictionary\-size=\fR<bytes>
set dictionary size limit in bytes [8 MiB]
.TP
\fB\-S\fR, \fB\-\-volume\-size=\fR<bytes>
set volume size limit in bytes
.TP
\fB\-t\fR, \fB\-\-test\fR
test compressed file integrity
.TP
\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-verbose\fR
be verbose (a 2nd \fB\-v\fR gives more)
.TP
\fB\-0\fR .. \fB\-9\fR
set compression level [default 6]
.TP
\fB\-\-loose\-trailing\fR
allow trailing data seeming corrupt header
.PP
Lzip replaces each named file with a (de)compressed version.
If no file names are given, or if a file is '\-', lzip compresses or
decompresses from standard input to standard output.
Numbers may contain underscore separators between groups of digits and
may be followed by a SI or binary multiplier: 1_234_567kB, 4KiB.
Dictionary sizes 12 to 29 are interpreted as powers of two, meaning 2^12 to
2^29 bytes.
.PP
The bidimensional parameter space of LZMA can't be mapped to a linear scale
optimal for all files. If your files are large, very repetitive, etc, you
may need to use the options \fB\-\-dictionary\-size\fR and \fB\-\-match\-length\fR directly
to achieve optimal performance.
.PP
To extract all the files from archive 'foo.tar.lz', use the commands
\&'tar \fB\-xf\fR foo.tar.lz' or 'lzip \fB\-cd\fR foo.tar.lz | tar \fB\-xf\fR \-'.
.PP
The ideas embodied in lzip are due to (at least) the following people:
Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv (for the LZ algorithm), Andrei Markov (for the
definition of Markov chains), G.N.N. Martin (for the definition of range
encoding), Igor Pavlov (for putting all the above together in LZMA), and
Julian Seward (for bzip2's CLI).
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (file not found, invalid
command\-line options, I/O errors, etc), 2 to indicate a corrupt or invalid
input file, 3 for an internal consistency error (e.g., bug) which caused
lzip to panic.
.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
Report bugs to lzip\-bug@nongnu.org
.br
Lzip home page: http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip.html
.SH COPYRIGHT
Copyright \(co 2026 Antonio Diaz Diaz.
License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
.br
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
The full documentation for
.B lzip
is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the
.B info
and
.B lzip
programs are properly installed at your site, the command
.IP
.B info lzip
.PP
should give you access to the complete manual.
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