On Linux, gzip is unable to compress a folder, it used to compress a single file only. To compress a folder, you should use tar + gzip, which is tar -z.
Note
$ tar --help
-z, -j, -J, --lzma Compress archive with gzip/bzip2/xz/lzma
For example,
tar -zcvf outputFileName folderToCompress
1. Tar + Gzip a folder
Example to gzip a folder named “newrelic”, and also all the files within that folder, into a single compressed file newrelic.tar.gz
$ tar -zcvf newrelic.tar.gz newrelic/
a newrelic
a newrelic/.DS_Store
a newrelic/CHANGELOG
a newrelic/extension-example.xml
a newrelic/extension.xsd
a newrelic/LICENSE
a newrelic/newrelic-api-sources.jar
a newrelic/newrelic-api.jar
a newrelic/newrelic.jar
a newrelic/newrelic.yml
a newrelic/nrcerts
a newrelic/README.txt
$ ls -lsa
0 drwxr-xr-x 13 mkyong staff 442 Jan 24 21:40 newrelic
11072 -rw-r--r-- 1 mkyong staff 5667938 Jul 23 15:44 newrelic.tar.gz
List the contents of newrelic.tar.gz
$ tar -tf newrelic.tar.gz
newrelic/
newrelic/._.DS_Store
newrelic/.DS_Store
newrelic/._CHANGELOG
newrelic/CHANGELOG
newrelic/._extension-example.xml
newrelic/extension-example.xml
newrelic/._extension.xsd
newrelic/extension.xsd
newrelic/._LICENSE
newrelic/LICENSE
newrelic/._newrelic-api-sources.jar
newrelic/newrelic-api-sources.jar
newrelic/._newrelic-api.jar
newrelic/newrelic-api.jar
newrelic/._newrelic.jar
newrelic/newrelic.jar
newrelic/._newrelic.yml
newrelic/newrelic.yml
newrelic/._nrcerts
newrelic/nrcerts
newrelic/._README.txt
newrelic/README.txt
References
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Hi. how do we pull a similar stunt using pigz [Parallel Implementation of GZip]
Thank you, some good examples of using tar with gzip here, I also found the extra information on what else can be done with gzip at these locations below, hopefully it helps anyone else seeking more info too.
https://www.rootusers.com/11-simple-gzip-examples/
http://lowfatlinux.com/linux-gzip-gunzip.html