Linux bzless Command with Practical Examples

Introduction

In this lab, you will learn how to use the bzless command, a tool for viewing the contents of bzip2-compressed text files in Linux. The bzless command allows you to navigate through compressed files without having to decompress them first, making it a convenient tool for working with large compressed files. You will explore the various options available with the bzless command and learn how to use it to search, navigate, and display the contents of compressed text files.

The lab covers the following steps:

1. Understand the bzless command
2. Explore bzless command options
3. Utilize bzless for navigating compressed text files

Linux Commands Cheat Sheet

Skills Graph

Understand the bzless Command

In this step, you will learn about the bzless command, which is a tool used to view the contents of bzip2-compressed text files. The bzless command is similar to the less command, but it allows you to navigate through compressed files without having to decompress them first.

To get started, let's first create a sample bzip2-compressed file:

echo "This is a sample text file." | bzip2 > sample.txt.bz2

Now, let's use the bzless command to view the contents of the compressed file:

bzless sample.txt.bz2

You should see the following output:

This is a sample text file.

The bzless command allows you to navigate through the compressed file just like you would with the less command. You can use the following key combinations to navigate:

• Spacebar: Scroll down one page
• b: Scroll up one page
• G: Go to the end of the file
• g: Go to the beginning of the file
• /: Search for a pattern
• n: Go to the next search result
• q: Quit the bzless command

Explore bzless Command Options

In this step, you will learn about the various options available with the bzless command to customize its behavior.

First, let's create another bzip2-compressed file to work with:

echo "This is another sample text file." | bzip2 > another.txt.bz2

Now, let's explore some of the bzless command options:

1. Display line numbers: Use the -N or --line-numbers option to display line numbers:

   bzless -N another.txt.bz2

   Example output:

    1 This is another sample text file.

2. Set the number of lines to display per page: Use the -z or --window option to set the number of lines to display per page:

   bzless -z 10 another.txt.bz2

   This will display 10 lines per page.

3. Search for a pattern: Use the / character followed by the pattern to search for a specific text:

   bzless another.txt.bz2
   ## Press '/' and type 'sample'

   This will allow you to search for the word 'sample' within the compressed file.

4. Navigate to a specific line: Use the G command to go to a specific line number. For example, to go to line 1:

   bzless another.txt.bz2
   ## Press 'G' and type '1'

These are just a few examples of the available bzless command options. You can explore more options by running man bzless in the terminal.

Utilize bzless for Navigating Compressed Text Files

In this final step, you will learn how to use the bzless command to efficiently navigate through compressed text files.

First, let's create a larger bzip2-compressed file to work with:

curl -s https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2600/2600-0.txt | bzip2 > moby_dick.txt.bz2

This file contains the full text of the novel "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville, compressed using bzip2.

Now, let's use the bzless command to explore this file:

bzless moby_dick.txt.bz2

You can use the following commands to navigate through the file:

• Spacebar: Scroll down one page
• b: Scroll up one page
• G: Go to the end of the file
• g: Go to the beginning of the file
• /: Search for a pattern
• n: Go to the next search result
• q: Quit the bzless command

For example, to search for the word "whale" in the file:

## Press '/' and type 'whale'
## Press 'n' to go to the next search result

You can also combine the bzless command with other tools to perform more advanced operations. For example, to count the number of occurrences of the word "whale" in the file:

bzless moby_dick.txt.bz2 | grep -c 'whale'

This will output the number of times the word "whale" appears in the compressed file.

Summary

In this lab, you learned about the bzless command, which is used to view the contents of bzip2-compressed text files. You explored the various options available with the bzless command, such as displaying line numbers, setting the number of lines to display per page, and searching for a specific pattern within the compressed file. You also learned how to navigate through the compressed file using the bzless command, similar to the less command, without having to decompress the file first.

Linux Commands Cheat Sheet