gzip error

[hongjing_zhang]

I have a large file:3Gb
when I us :
gzip -c data.tar > /ccdata/cc/mike/data.tar.gz
data.tar: Unknown error

please help me!

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi

You have overstepped the 2 gig limit, tar has the same problem.

Either split the file or download and install pkzip for HP-UX.


HTH

Paula

[Stefan Farrelly]

Try it without the -c option;

gzip data.tar

(it will replace the file with data.tar.gz if successfully compresssed) It sounds like it might be having trouble reading the data.tar file.

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell · Accepted solution]

Hi

Pkzip here:-

http://nct.digitalriver.com/fulfill/0018.5


Paula

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi

Another option:-

Untar the file, zip the files and tar them again.


Paula

[Stefan Farrelly]

Paula - are you sure about this 2Gb limit. I just gzip'd a 13GB tar file down to 3.5Gb successfully. No problems.

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi Stepan -

Ooops sorry you are right - late night last evening.

Please ignore my 2 gig limit bit.


Back to the question:-

Do you have sufficient space to gzip a 3 gig file?

Paula

[John Palmer]

Stefan/Paula,

The 11.00 standard issue gzip (/usr/contrib/bin/gzip) has a 2Gb limit. Identifies itself as follows with gzip -V

gzip 1.2.4 (18 Aug 93)
Compilation options:
DIRENT UTIME STDC_HEADERS HAVE_UNISTD_H

The latest version available from the porting centre has no such limit:
/usr/local/bin/gzip -V
gzip 1.3.3
(2002-03-08)
...

Regards,
John

[Stefan Farrelly]

Hi John,

very interesting. Using the Aug93 gzip version (old with supposed 2Gb limit) I can still create a 3+GB tgz file by doing;

tar cf - <13Gb source files> | gzip > t.tgz

If I create the 13Gb tar file first then try to simply gzip it if fails with unknown error, but the above does work so even though it has a 2Gb limit you can workaround it by doing your gzip the above way - without having to install a later version of gzip.