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Russell:

On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 8:18 AM, Russell Haley <russ.haley@gmail.com> wrote:
...
> Yes, there seems to be a tar utility available with the OS.  I haven't
> looked to far yet.

tar is the Tape ARchiver, it does not compress, just pack many files /
dire entries / other things into one big file ( it does other things,
but it forks to another program for compressing ).

In the unix world where it originates you normally tend to have a
program do one thing, to make the equivalent of a zip file you
normally first put everything into a single file with tar and then
compress the result, hence the classical .tar.gz extension with
whatever compressor you want ( I think this is callied solid mode in
the rar ( or maybe arj ) family. zip and its cousins tend to compress
each file and then pack the result. This makes it easier to extract
single files but does not compress as well, as you cannot use
inter-file redundancy. ).

Francisco Olarte.