LZF(1) | General Commands Manual | LZF(1)

# NAME

`lzf` — compress and uncompress files using LZF algorithm

# SYNOPSIS

`lzf` | [`-bcdfhv`] file [file [...]]

`unlzf` | file [file [...]]

`lzfcat` | file [file [...]]

# DESCRIPTION

`lzf` is a simple program to compress or uncompress files using LZF (sometimes known as "Lempel-Ziv Fast") coding. LZF is extremely fast, about 75% of the performance of memcpy(3) for many inputs, while offering a moderate compression ratio, usually between 1.5:1 and 2:1.

When compressing, it removes each input file and replaces it with an output file with the suffix “.lzf” appended. When uncompressing, it removes each input file and replaces it with an output file with the suffix “.lzf” removed. If no files are specified as arguments, standard input and standard output are used as input and output respectively.

If invoked as `lzf`, the default mode of operation is to compress. If invoked as `unlzf`, the default mode of operation is to uncompress. If invoked as `lzfcat`, the default mode of operation is to uncompress to standard output.

# OPTIONS

The following options are available:

`-b`
  This option selects a compression blocksize. Small compression block sizes give poor compression and slow operation; the default of 64KiB is strongly recommended. Block sizes larger than 64KiB are silently reduced to 64KiB in order to not produce output incompatible with other versions of `lzf`.
`-c`
  This option selects compression.
`-d`
  This option selects decompression.
`-f`
  This option forces overwrite of preexisting output files, if any.
`-h`
  This option prints command usage.
`-v`
  This option prints compression statistics for each file processed.

# SEE ALSO

bzip2(1), compress(1), gzip(1), xz(1)

# HISTORY

The `lzf` program was first included with version 0.1 of Marc Lehmann's LZF library. It was rewritten for version 2.0 of the library to offer the current syntax, which is mostly compatible with other compression utilities such as gzip(1). The `lzf` program first appeared in NetBSD 7.0.

# AUTHORS

The `lzf` program was written by Stefan Traby <stefan@hello-penguin.com>.

# BUGS

Some versions of `lzf` install a program named “lzcat” instead of `lzfcat`. Because the (lzcat) name is also used by xz(1), in NetBSD the name `lzfcat` is used instead.

September 16, 2012 | NetBSD 11.0