zcat, zless, zmore

Purpose

View the contents of a compressed text file without having to first decompress the file.

Syntax

zcat filename zless filename zmore filename

Options

None

Description

The zcat, zless, and zmore commands work the same way as cat, less, and more. The only difference is that the z-commands can directly read files compressed with gzip or compress (without having to first decompress the files with gunzip). These commands are particularly useful for reading compressed text files, such as the ones in /usr/info directory.