.TH uncompress "" "" Command
.PC "Uncompress a compressed file"
\fBuncompress [ \fIfile ...\fB ]\fR
.PP
.B uncompress
uncompressses one or more
.IR file s
that had been compressed by the command
.BR compress .
.PP
Each
.IR file 's
name must have the suffix
.BR \&.Z ,
which was appended onto it by
.BR compress ;
otherwise,
.B uncompress
prints an error message and exits.
When
.B uncompress
has uncompressed a
.IR file ,
it removes the \fB.Z\fR suffix from that file's name.
.PP
If no
.I file
is specified on the command line,
.B uncompress
uncompresses matter read from the standard input, and writes its output
to the standard output.
.PP
Older versions of
.B uncompress
could only uncompress files that had been compressed with option
.B \-b12
or lower, with
.B \-b12
being the default.
The edition of
.B uncompress
released with \*(CO version 3.1 (and subsequent versions)
can handle values up to 16.
.SH "See Also"
.Xr "commands," commands
.Xr "compress," compress
.Xr "compression," compression
.Xr "ram," ram
.Xr "zcat" zcat
