In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to view the contents of an Archive and/or Compressed file without actually extracting it in Linux and Unix-like operating systems.
Technically speaking - Viewing the contents of an archive and/or compressed files without extracting them is not possible.
Behind the scenes the compressed files are decompressed in a temporary directory, a common location is in the /tmp directory in Linux and Unix systems.
Once you reboot the system, the contents of /tmp directory will be gone.
Table of Contents
Archiving vs Compressing files
Before going further, let me clarify about Archiving and compressing files. There is significant difference between both.
The Archiving is the process of combining multiple files or folders or both into a single file. In this case, the resulting file is not compressed.
The compressing is a method of combining multiple files or folders or both into a single file and finally compress the resulting file. The archive is not a compressed file, but the compressed file can be an archive.
Clear? Well, let us get to the topic.
View the contents of an Archive or Compressed file in Linux
Thanks to Linux community, there are many command line applications are available to display the contents of archive and compressed files. Here I have listed 10 methods.
1. Using Vim Editor
Vim is not just an editor. Using Vim, we can do numerous things. The following command displays the contents of an compressed archive file without decompressing it.
$ vim ostechnix.tar.gz
You can even browse through the archive and open the text files (if there are any) in the archive as well. To open a text file, just put the mouse cursor in-front of the file using arrow keys and hit ENTER to open it.
2. Using Tar command
To list the contents of a tar archive file, run:
$ tar -tf ostechnix.tar ostechnix/ ostechnix/image.jpg ostechnix/file.pdf ostechnix/song.mp3
Or, use -v flag to view the detailed properties of the archive file, such as permissions, file owner, group, creation date etc.
$ tar -tvf ostechnix.tar drwxr-xr-x sk/users 0 2018-07-02 19:30 ostechnix/ -rw-r--r-- sk/users 53632 2018-06-29 15:57 ostechnix/image.jpg -rw-r--r-- sk/users 156831 2018-06-04 12:37 ostechnix/file.pdf -rw-r--r-- sk/users 9702219 2018-04-25 20:35 ostechnix/song.mp3
3. Using Rar command
To view the contents of a rar file, simply do:
$ rar v ostechnix.rar RAR 5.60 Copyright (c) 1993-2018 Alexander Roshal 24 Jun 2018 Trial version Type 'rar -?' for help Archive: ostechnix.rar Details: RAR 5 Attributes Size Packed Ratio Date Time Checksum Name ----------- --------- -------- ----- ---------- ----- -------- ---- -rw-r--r-- 53632 52166 97% 2018-06-29 15:57 70260AC4 ostechnix/image.jpg -rw-r--r-- 156831 139094 88% 2018-06-04 12:37 C66C545E ostechnix/file.pdf -rw-r--r-- 9702219 9658527 99% 2018-04-25 20:35 DD875AC4 ostechnix/song.mp3 ----------- --------- -------- ----- ---------- ----- -------- ---- 9912682 9849787 99% 3
4. Using Unrar command
You can also do the same using Unrar command with l flag as shown below.
$ unrar l ostechnix.rar UNRAR 5.60 freeware Copyright (c) 1993-2018 Alexander Roshal Archive: ostechnix.rar Details: RAR 5 Attributes Size Date Time Name ----------- --------- ---------- ----- ---- -rw-r--r-- 53632 2018-06-29 15:57 ostechnix/image.jpg -rw-r--r-- 156831 2018-06-04 12:37 ostechnix/file.pdf -rw-r--r-- 9702219 2018-04-25 20:35 ostechnix/song.mp3 ----------- --------- ---------- ----- ---- 9912682 3
5. Using Zip command
To view the contents of a zip file without extracting it, use the following zip command:
$ zip -sf ostechnix.zip Archive contains: Life advices.jpg Total 1 entries (597219 bytes)
6. Using Unzip command
You can also use Unzip command with -l flag to display the contents of a zip file like below.
$ unzip -l ostechnix.zip Archive: ostechnix.zip Length Date Time Name --------- ---------- ----- ---- 597219 2018-04-09 12:48 Life advices.jpg --------- ------- 597219 1 file
7. Using Zipinfo command
$ zipinfo ostechnix.zip Archive: ostechnix.zip Zip file size: 584859 bytes, number of entries: 1 -rw-r--r-- 6.3 unx 597219 bx defN 18-Apr-09 12:48 Life advices.jpg 1 file, 597219 bytes uncompressed, 584693 bytes compressed: 2.1%
As you can see, the above command displays the contents of the zip file, its permissions, creating date, and percentage of compression etc.
8. Using Zcat command
To view the contents of a compressed archive file without extracting it using zcat command, we do:
$ zcat ostechnix.tar.gz
The zcat is same as "gunzip -c" command. So, you can also use the following command to view the contents of the archive/compressed file:
$ gunzip -c ostechnix.tar.gz
9. Using Zless command
To view the contents of an archive/compressed file using Zless command, simply do:
$ zless ostechnix.tar.gz
This command is similar to "less" command where it displays the output page by page.
10. Using Less command
As you might already know, the less command can be used to open a file for interactive reading, allowing scrolling and search.
Run the following command to view the contents of an archive/compressed file using less command:
$ less ostechnix.tar.gz
Related read:
Conclusion
You know now how to view the contents of an archive of compressed file using various commands in Linux. Hope you find this useful.
