Editing Compress (software) (section)

== Description ==
Files compressed by ''compress'' are typically given the [[filename extension|extension]] ".Z" (modeled after the earlier [[pack (compression)|pack]] program which used the [[filename extension|extension]] ".z"). Most ''[[tar (file format)|tar]]'' programs will [[pipe (Unix)|pipe]] their data through ''compress'' when given the command line option "<code>-Z</code>". (The ''tar'' program in its own does not compress; it just stores multiple files within one tape archive.)

Files can be returned to their original state using ''uncompress''. The usual action of ''uncompress'' is not merely to create an uncompressed copy of the file, but also to restore the timestamp and other attributes of the compressed file.

For files produced by ''compress'' on other systems, ''uncompress'' supports 9- to 16-bit compression.