PXZ(1)

📦 version 4.999.9, in epel 10, epel 9, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

💖 PXZ — the parallel XZ compressor, bestie edition 💖

okay so. pxz is a compression utility, and she's that girl fr. The whole flex is that she runs XZ compression simultaneously on different parts of your input file, across multiple cores and processors. So instead of one sad little core doing all the work while the rest of your CPU naps, everybody's working, and your compression time drops significantly. main character energy honestly 💅

She lives in section 1 of the manual, and yes she's compatible with xz — that's the whole point. 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

pxz [options]... [file]...

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

pxz is a compression utility that takes advantage of running XZ compression simultaneously on different parts of an input file on multiple cores and processors. This significantly speeds up compression time.

That's it, that's the pitch. Parallelize the vibe, watch the clock go 📉.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -v — Be verbose. She'll show you progress, like a little progress bar bestie keeping you company. 👀
  • -h, --help — Display help. When in doubt, ask for help, it's iconic behavior.
  • -f, --force — Force operation. She's not asking, she's doing. 💪
  • -c, --stdout — Write results to standard output and don't delete input files. Perfect for piping into something else. 🌈
  • -k, --keep — Keep (don't delete) input files. Your originals stay safe and sound, protected, cherished. 🫶
  • -T, --threads — Maximal number of threads to run simultaneously. More threads = more besties helping out. 🔥
  • -D, --context-size — Context size per one thread, specified as a multiple of the dictionary size for the active compression level. Yes, it's a mouthful, it's giving very specific and we respect it.
  • -V, --version — Display version of PXZ. Know which girl you're talking to. 👑

⭐ EXAMPLES ⭐

Compress file1 and file2 to file1.xz and file2.xz using default settings:

pxz file1 file2

Compress file1 with default compression and a maximum of 4 threads:

pxz -T4 file1

Use maximal compression and keep the original file1, use the default number of threads:

pxz -k -9 file1

Compress the file with default compression and with 4 threads:

pxz -f -T4 file1

Use -3 compression, keep the original file, use 8 threads and show progress:

pxz -kvf -3 -T8 file1

Move dir1 into tar, then compress it with the context of 12 sizes of dictionary per thread, show progress and write the result to dir1.tar.xz:

tar Oc dir1 | pxz -D 12 -cv - > dir1.tar.xz
the -kvf -3 -T8 one is lowkey the moment. bundling short flags is a vibe. ✨

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

🌸 AUTHOR 🌸

Jindrich Novy <jnovy@users.sourceforge.net>

💀 BUGS 💀

Report bugs via http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/

not me sending bug reports to bugzilla in the year of our lord, but okay bestie, that's the link. 🙈

and that's the whole page, no cap. this was pxz, from the PXZ(1) manual, page source pxz, dated Jun 2010. she's been serving parallel compression since 2010 and honestly? ate. periodt. 🎀✨👑

📦 where this page comes from