Compression & Archiving

When working with simulations and large datasets, it’s often useful to compress or archive files to save space and make sharing easier. Linux, WSL, and macOS provide built-in commands for creating and extracting compressed archives.

Creating Archives

Command	Description	Example
tar -cvf archive.tar folder/	Create an uncompressed archive	tar -cvf results.tar results/
tar -czvf archive.tar.gz folder/	Create a compressed .tar.gz archive	tar -czvf mesh_data.tar.gz mesh/
zip -r archive.zip folder/	Create a .zip file	zip -r project_backup.zip project/

Extracting Archives

Command	Description	Example
tar -xvf archive.tar	Extract a .tar archive	tar -xvf results.tar
tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz	Extract a compressed .tar.gz file	tar -xzvf mesh_data.tar.gz
unzip archive.zip	Extract a .zip file	unzip project_backup.zip

Summary

• Use tar for Linux-style archives (.tar / .tar.gz).
• Use zip and unzip for cross-platform compatibility.
• Compressing simulation results or mesh files helps save space and makes backups or sharing much faster.