Command Line Compression Tools

There are several scenarios where is very useful to know how to compress/decompress files via command line.
One example is the configuration of a continuous integration plan. We could need to compress directories to expose them as an artifact.
Here is a short list of command line options for Windows and Linux and a third-party option using 7zip.

Windows Built In

Powershell (Windows 8+, Server 2012+)

Compress

Add-Type -A System.IO.Compression.FileSystem
[IO.Compression.ZipFile]::CreateFromDirectory([folderPath], [zipFilePath])

folderPath: path to the folder to be compressed
zipFilePath: destination zip file

Example:

Add-Type -A System.IO.Compression.FileSystem
[IO.Compression.ZipFile]::CreateFromDirectory('C:\Source\MyProject', 'C:\source\my-project.zip')

Extract

Add-Type -A System.IO.Compression.FileSystem
[IO.Compression.ZipFile]::ExtractToDirectory([zipFilePath], [folderPath])

zipFilePath: source zip file folderPath: path to a folder where the zip content will be extracted

Example:

Add-Type -A System.IO.Compression.FileSystem
[IO.Compression.ZipFile]::ExtractToDirectory([zipFilePath], [folderPath])

Extra options:

[IO.Compression.ZipFile]::CreateFromDirectory([folderPath], [zipFilePath], [compressionLevel], [includeBaseDirectory], [encoding])

compressionLevel: Fastest, NoCompression or Optimal
includeBaseDirectory: true, false
encoding: ASCII, Unicode, UTF32, UTF8, etc.

For example:

[IO.Compression.ZipFile]::CreateFromDirectory('C:\Source\MyProject', 'C:\source\my-project.zip', [IO.Compression.CompressionLevel]::Fastest, 1, [Text.Encoding]::UTF8)

Note: If you get a *.ps1 cannot be loaded because the execution of scripts is disabled on this system...

You will have to enable it first.You can view the execution policy status running:

Get-ExecutionPolicy

You can find an explanation of the different execution policies in the following link:https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176961.aspx

You can configure it with RemoteSigned or for a more secure option you can scope it to the actual user:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

Linux

Tar

Compress

tar -czf my-project.tar.gz ~\projects\my-project

If for wherever reason you have a C:\Windows\temp folder in your files, you can exclude it with:

tar -czf my-project.tar.gz ~\projects\my-project --exclude="C:\\\Windows\\\temp"

Extract

tar -xzf my-project.tar.gz ~\projects\my-project

Third Party

7z

Compress

7z.exe a -r -y {output-file.[zip|7z|etc]} [path-to-folder]

a: Add files to archive
r: Recurse subdirectories
y: Assume Yes in all queries

Example:

7z.exe a -r -y "C:\Projects\my-project.zip" "C:\Projects\My-Project"

Example excluding a folder:

7z.exe a -r -y -xr!.git "C:\Projects\my-project.zip" "C:\Projects\My-Project"

Extract

7z.exe x -o[folder-name] {file-name.[zip|7z|etc]}

Example

7z.exe x "C:\Projects\my-project.zip" -o"C:\Projects\My-Project"