UNZIP

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 22 Aug 92 (v5.0)
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

unzip - list/test/extract from a ZIP archive file

SYNOPSIS

unzip [ -cflptuvxz[ajnoqUV] ] file[.zip] [filespec ...]

ARGUMENTS

file[.zip]: Path of the ZIP archive. The suffix ``.zip'' is applied if the file specified does not exist. Note that self-extracting ZIP files are supported; just specify the ``.exe'' suffix yourself.
[filespec]: An optional list of archive members to be processed. Expressions may be used to match multiple members; be sure to quote expressions that contain characters interpreted by the operating system. See DESCRIPTION (below) for more details.

OPTIONS

-c: extract files to stdout/screen (``CRT'')
-f: freshen existing files (replace if newer); create none
-l: list archive files (short format)
-p: extract files to pipe; no informational messages
-t: test archive files
-u: update existing files; create new ones if needed
-v: list archive files (verbose format)
-x: extract files in archive (default)
-z: display only the archive comment

MODIFIERS

-a: convert to MS-DOS textfile format (CR LF), Mac format (CR), Unix/VMS format (LF), OR from ASCII to EBCDIC, depending on your system (only use for TEXT files!)
-j: junk paths (don't recreate archive's directory structure)
-n: never overwrite existing files; don't prompt
-o: OK to overwrite files without prompting
-q: perform operations quietly (-qq rh even quieter)
-s: [OS/2, MS-DOS] allow spaces in filenames (e.g., ``EA DATA. SF'')
-U: leave filenames uppercase if created under MS-DOS, VMS, etc.
-V: retain (VMS) file version numbers
-X: [VMS] restore owner/protection info (may require privileges)

DESCRIPTION

UnZip will list, test, or extract from a ZIP archive, commonly found on MSDOS systems. Archive member extraction is implied by the absence of the -c, -p, -t, -l, -v or -z options. All archive members are processed unless a filespec is provided to specify a subset of the archive members. The filespec is similar to an egrep expression, and may contain:

*      matches a sequence of 0 or more characters

?     matches exactly 1 character

\nnn  matches the character having octal code nnn

[...]: matches any single character found inside the brackets; ranges are specified by a beginning character, a hyphen, and an ending character. If an exclamation point or a carat (`!' or `^') follows the left bracket, then the range of characters matched is complemented with respect to the ASCII character set (that is, anything except the characters inside the brackets is considered a match).

ENVIRONMENT OPTIONS

UnZip's default behavior may be modified via options placed in an environment variable. This can be done with any option, but it is probably most useful with the -q, -o, or -n modifiers: in order to make UnZip quieter by default, or to make it always overwrite or never overwrite files as it extracts them. For example, to make UnZip act as quietly as possible, only reporting errors, one would use one of the following commands:

setenv UNZIP -qq Unix C shell
UNZIP=-qq; export UNZIP Unix Bourne shell

set UNZIP=-qq OS/2 or MS-DOS

define UNZIP_OPTS -qq VMS (quotes for LOWERCASE)

Environment options are, in effect, considered to be just like any other command-line options, except that they are effectively the first options on the command line. To override an environment option, one may use the ``minus operator'' to remove it. For instance, to override one of the quiet-flags in the example above, use the command

unzip --q[other options] zipfile

The first hyphen is the normal switch character, and the second is a minus sign, acting on the q option. Thus the effect here is to cancel a single quantum of quietness. To cancel both quiet flags, two (or more) minuses may be used:

unzip -x--q zipfile

unzip ---qx zipfile

(the two are equivalent). This may seem awkward or confusing, but it is reasonably intuitive: just ignore the first hyphen and go from there. It is also consistent with the behavior of Unix nice(1).

EXAMPLES

To use UnZip to extract all members of the archive letters.zip, creating any directories as necessary:

unzip letters

To extract all members of letters.zip to the current directory:

unzip -j letters

To test letters.zip, printing only a summary message indicating whether the archive is OK or not:

unzip -tq letters

To extract to standard output all members of letters.zip whose names end in ``.tex'', converting to the local end-of-line convention and piping the output into more(1):

unzip -ca letters \*.tex | more

(The backslash before the asterisk is only required if the shell expands wildcards, as in Unix; double quotes could have been used instead, as in the source example below.) To extract the binary file paper1.dvi to standard output and pipe it to a printing program:

unzip -p articles paper1.dvi | dvips

To extract all FORTRAN and C source files--*.f, *.c, *.h, Makefile (the double quotes are necessary only in Unix and only if globbing is turned on):

unzip source.zip *.[fch] Makefile

To extract only newer versions of the files already in the current directory, without querying (NOTE: be careful of unzipping in one timezone a zipfile created in another--ZIP archives contain no timezone information, and a ``newer'' file from an eastern timezone may, in fact, be older):

unzip -fo sources

To extract newer versions of the files already in the current directory and to create any files not already there (same caveat as previous example):

unzip -uo sources

In the last five examples, assume that UNZIP or UNZIP_OPTS is set to -q. To do a singly quiet listing:

unzip -l file

To do a doubly quiet listing:

unzip -ql file

To do a standard listing:

unzip --ql file

unzip -l-q file

unzip -l--q file

(extra minuses don't hurt).

TIPS

The current maintainer, being a lazy sort, finds it very useful to define an alias ``tt'' for ``unzip -tq''. One may then simply type ``tt zipfile'' to test the archive, something which one ought make a habit of doing. With luck UnZip will report ``No errors detected in zipfile.zip,'' after which one may breathe a sigh of relief.

AUTHORS

Samuel H. Smith, Carl Mascott, David P. Kirschbaum, Greg R. Roelofs, Mark Adler, Kai Uwe Rommel, Igor Mandrichenko, Johnny Lee, Jean-loup Gailly; Glenn Andrews, Joel Aycock, Allan Bjorklund, James Birdsall, Wim Bonner, John Cowan, Frank da Cruz, Bill Davidsen, Arjan de Vet, James Dugal, Jim Dumser, Mark Edwards, David Feinleib, Mike Freeman, Hunter Goatley, Robert Heath, Dave Heiland, Larry Jones, Kjetil J(o)rgenson, Bob Kemp, J. Kercheval, Alvin Koh, Bo Kullmar, Johnny Lee, Warner Losh, Fulvio Marino, Gene McManus, Joe Meadows, Mike O'Carroll, Humberto Ortiz-Zuazaga, Piet W. Plomp, Antonio Querubin Jr., Steve Salisbury, Georg Sassen, Jon Saxton, Hugh Schmidt, Martin Schulz, Charles Scripter, Chris Seaman, Richard Seay, Alex Sergejew, Cliff Stanford, Onno van der Linden, Jim Van Zandt, Antoine Verheijen, Paul Wells.

VERSIONS

v1.2 15 Mar 89: Samuel H. Smith
v2.0 9 Sep 89: Samuel H. Smith
v2.x fall 1989: many Usenet contributors
v3.0 1 May 90: Info-ZIP (DPK, consolidator)
v3.1 15 Aug 90: Info-ZIP (DPK, consolidator)
v4.0 1 Dec 90: Info-ZIP (GRR, maintainer)
v4.1 12 May 91: Info-ZIP
v4.2 20 Mar 92: Info-ZIP (zip-bugs subgroup; GRR, maint.)
v5.0 21 Aug 92: Info-ZIP (zip-bugs subgroup; GRR, maint.)

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 19:59:28 GMT, September 28, 2022