Re: gzip -l problem

[Mathieu Chouquet-Stringer <ml2news free fr>]

tsh mrc-lmb cam ac uk ("T. Horsnell") writes:
> I think 'gzip -l' is having trouble reporting statistics
> on files whose uncompressed size is > 4Gbytes. Has anyone
> else seen this problem? Do I contact Gnu about this?

man gzip:

BUGS
       The  gzip  format represents the the input size modulo 2^32, so the
       --list option reports incorrect uncompressed sizes and compression
       ratios for uncompressed files 4 GB and larger.  To work around this
       problem, you can use the following command  to  discover  a  large
       uncompressed file's true size:

             zcat file.gz | wc -c

       The --list option reports sizes as -1 and crc as ffffffff if the
       compressed file is on a non seekable media. 

       In  some  rare cases, the --best option gives worse compression than
       the default compression level (-6). On some highly redundant files,
       compress compresses better than gzip.

-- 
Mathieu Chouquet-Stringer
    "Le disparu, si l'on vénère sa mémoire, est plus présent et
                 plus puissant que le vivant".
           -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Citadelle --