gzip [ -acdfhlLnNrtvV19 ] [-S suffix] [ name ...  ]
gunzip [ -acfhlLnNrtvV ] [-S suffix] [ name ...  ]
zcat [ -fhLV ] [ name ...  ]

-a --ascii
       Ascii  text  mode:  convert end-of-lines using local conventions. This option is supported only on
       some non-Unix systems. For MSDOS, CR LF is converted to LF when compressing, and LF  is  converted
       to CR LF when decompressing.

-c --stdout --to-stdout
       Write output on standard output; keep original files unchanged.  If there are several input files,
       the output  consists  of  a  sequence  of  independently  compressed  members.  To  obtain  better
       compression, concatenate all input files before compressing them.

-d --decompress --uncompress
       Decompress.

-f --force
       Force  compression  or decompression even if the file has multiple links or the corresponding file
       already exists, or if the compressed data is read from or written to a terminal. If the input data
       is  not  in  a format recognized by gzip, and if the option --stdout is also given, copy the input
       data without change to the standard output: let zcat behave as cat.  If -f is not given, and  when
       not  running  in  the  background,  gzip  prompts  to  verify  whether  an existing file should be
       overwritten.

-h --help
       Display a help screen and quit.

-l --list
       For each compressed file, list the following fields:

                  compressed size: size of the compressed file
                  uncompressed size: size of the uncompressed file
                  ratio: compression ratio (0.0% if unknown)
                  uncompressed_name: name of the uncompressed file

              The uncompressed size is given as -1 for files not in gzip format, such as compressed .Z files. To
              get the uncompressed size for such a file, you can use:

                  zcat file.Z | wc -c

              In combination with the --verbose option, the following fields are also displayed:

                  method: compression method
                  crc: the 32-bit CRC of the uncompressed data
                  date & time: time stamp for the uncompressed file

              The compression methods currently supported are deflate, compress, lzh (SCO compress -H) and pack.
              The crc is given as ffffffff for a file not in gzip format.

              With --name, the uncompressed name,  date and time  are those stored within the compress  file  if
              present.

              With --verbose, the size totals and compression ratio for all files is also displayed, unless some
              sizes are unknown. With --quiet, the title and totals lines are not displayed.

-L --license
       Display the gzip license and quit.

-n --no-name
       When compressing, do not save the original file name and time stamp by default. (The original name
       is  always saved if the name had to be truncated.) When decompressing, do not restore the original
       file name if present (remove only the gzip suffix from  the  compressed  file  name)  and  do  not
       restore  the original time stamp if present (copy it from the compressed file). This option is the
       default when decompressing.

-N --name
       When compressing, always save the original file name and time stamp; this  is  the  default.  When
       decompressing,  restore the original file name and time stamp if present. This option is useful on
       systems which have a limit on file name length or when the time stamp has been lost after  a  file
       transfer.

-q --quiet
       Suppress all warnings.

-r --recursive
       Travel the directory structure recursively. If any of the file names specified on the command line
       are directories, gzip will descend into the directory and compress all the files  it  finds  there
       (or decompress them in the case of gunzip ).

-S .suf --suffix .suf
       Use suffix .suf instead of .gz. Any suffix can be given, but suffixes other than .z and .gz should
       be avoided to avoid confusion when files are transferred to other systems.  A null  suffix  forces
       gunzip to  try decompression on all given files regardless of suffix, as in:

           gunzip -S "" *       (*.* for MSDOS)

       Previous versions of gzip used the .z suffix. This was changed to avoid a conflict with pack(1).

-t --test
       Test. Check the compressed file integrity.

-v --verbose
       Verbose. Display the name and percentage reduction for each file compressed or decompressed.

-V --version
       Version. Display the version number and compilation options then quit.

-# --fast --best
       Regulate  the  speed  of compression using the specified digit #, where -1 or --fast indicates the
       fastest compression method (less compression) and -9 or --best indicates the  slowest  compression
       method  (best  compression).   The  default  compression level is -6 (that is, biased towards high
       compression at expense of speed).