gzip'd directory - how do I unzip

[pbarts]

We have compressed directory with a name ending in .gz_FILES. It is marked as a directory, and everything I've tried with gunzip is ignoring because of that. I've read a number of discussions, all of which recommend tar instead. That's probably a good recommendation going forward, but that doesn't help the current situation. I don't know how this .gz_FILES was created, and I don't know how to un-compress it. I would welcome any suggestions.

Thanks.

[sicarie]

Is the file extension actually .gz or is it .gz_FILES? If it is the latter, you can rename the end to .gz and then use gunzip command as usual.

If not, what is the error?

[rski]

what does

file <your_filename>

command show?

[pbarts]

It comes back with the response: setgid directory. What is that telling me?

[pbarts]

I tried to copy the file to a .gz extension, but got the message from cp: omitting directory '...directory name...'.

[rski]

Are you sure it is compressed directory? Did you try to enter the directory (cd <directory name>?)

[pbarts]

The system recognizes it as a valid directory. It's got the bit set and the cd command was successful. When I go there and list the directory contents, no files are listed (. and .. only). Ordinarily I would think it to be empty, but I'm not sure what a compressed directory would show if it actually had files in it.

[rski]

As far as I know you can not do cd for compressed directory, you have to uncompress it first. Your directory is empty.