z.1

.TH z 1
.SH NAME
z \- automatic inline decompression tool
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B z
.RB [ -- ]
.IR command ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B z
executes the command found on its command line, in an environment in
which compressed files are automatically and mostly transparently
decompressed when they are opened for reading.  The intent is to use
it with commands like
.BR less (1)
to enable graceful handling of compressed files.
.PP
.B z
is like
.BR nohup (1)
or
.BR exec (1),
in that it just executes the argument array passed to it, rather than
parsing it as a shell command.  Any I/O redirections will be processed
by the shell before invoking
.BR z .
For example, the command:
.PP
.nf
  z less < truss-geneaology.text.gz
.fi
.PP
will not decompress the file to view.  The proper invocation is:
.PP
.nf
  z less truss-geneaology.text.gz
.fi
.PP
.B z
does not work on statically linked programs.  Currently the compressed
extensions supported are .gz, .Z, .bz2 and (sort of) .bz.  If there is
not enough space in
.I /tmp
(or
.B TMPDIR
if that is set) then it won't work.
.SH OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
.TP
.B --help
Issues a help message.
.TP
.B --version
Displays the version number.
.TP
.B --
End of options.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B TMPDIR
.B z
will create a decompressed temporary file in this directory.  If it is
not set,
.I /tmp
is used.
.TP
.B LD_PRELOAD
.B z
adds an object to this variable to implement the automatic
decompression.
.SH AUTHOR
Richard Kettlewell, rjk@greenend.org.uk