ZCAT(P)                    POSIX Programmer's Manual                   ZCAT(P)



NAME
       zcat - expand and concatenate data

SYNOPSIS
       zcat [file...]

DESCRIPTION
       The  zcat  utility  shall  write  to standard output the
       uncompressed form of files  that  have  been  compressed
       using  the  compress  utility.   It is the equivalent of
       uncompress -c. Input files are not affected.

OPTIONS
       None.

OPERANDS
       The following operand shall be supported:

       file   The pathname of a file  previously  processed  by
              the  compress utility. If file already has the .Z
              suffix specified, it is used as submitted. Other-
              wise,  the  .Z suffix is appended to the filename
              prior to processing.


STDIN
       The standard  input  shall  be  used  only  if  no  file
       operands are specified, or if a file operand is '-' .

INPUT FILES
       Input  files  shall  be compressed files that are in the
       format produced by the compress utility.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The following environment  variables  shall  affect  the
       execution of zcat:

       LANG   Provide a default value for the internationaliza-
              tion variables that are unset or null.  (See  the
              Base  Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
              Section 8.2, Internationalization  Variables  for
              the  precedence of internationalization variables
              used to determine  the  values  of  locale  cate-
              gories.)

       LC_ALL If  set to a non-empty string value, override the
              values  of  all  the  other  internationalization
              variables.

       LC_CTYPE
              Determine  the  locale  for the interpretation of
              sequences of bytes of  text  data  as  characters
              (for  example,  single-byte  as opposed to multi-
              byte characters in arguments).

       LC_MESSAGES
              Determine the  locale  that  should  be  used  to
              affect the format and contents of diagnostic mes-
              sages written to standard error.

       NLSPATH
              Determine the location of  message  catalogs  for
              the processing of LC_MESSAGES .


ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
       Default.

STDOUT
       The  compressed files given as input shall be written on
       standard output in their uncompressed form.

STDERR
       The standard error shall be  used  only  for  diagnostic
       messages.

OUTPUT FILES
       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
       None.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0     Successful completion.

       >0     An error occurred.


CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       None.

EXAMPLES
       None.

RATIONALE
       None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       compress , uncompress

COPYRIGHT
       Portions  of  this  text are reprinted and reproduced in
       electronic form from  IEEE  Std  1003.1,  2003  Edition,
       Standard  for Information Technology -- Portable Operat-
       ing System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Speci-
       fications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Insti-
       tute of Electrical and Electronics  Engineers,  Inc  and
       The  Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between
       this version and the original IEEE and  The  Open  Group
       Standard,  the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
       is the referee document. The original  Standard  can  be
       obtained        online        at        http://www.open-
       group.org/unix/online.html .



IEEE/The Open Group                  2003                              ZCAT(P)
