[Linux-disciples] zcat v. zgrep v. zless

[Dylan Thurston]

On Mon, Oct 04, 2004 at 10:39:16AM -0400, Stephen R Laniel wrote:
> If you zgrep a raw-text file, it'll work fine. If you
> zless a raw-text file, it likewise works fine. If you
> zcat a raw-text file, however, you get an error that the
> file you're trying to cat isn't gzipped.
> 
> Is there a good reason for this inconsistent behavior?

Unlikely.  I'd file a wishlist bug against the gzip package, and the
bzip2 package if it does the same thing.

> What's the best way around this? I suppose I could write a
> script that checks whether its argument is gzipped or
> raw text; if the former, the script would run zcat against
> it, whereas for the latter the script would just run 'cat'.
> But that seems like a suboptimal approach.

Why suboptimal?  Speed will not be a concern.

Peace,
	Dylan
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