How to zip or compress a folder or directory in Linux

In Linux or similar Operating Systems, zip utility is used to package and compress (archive) files.

Let us get straight to action, we have a folder to compress with zip tool –

daniel@hidmo:/tmp/tutorial$ tree .
.
??? zip-tutorial
    ??? chapter-1
    ?   ??? content
    ??? chapter-2
    ?   ??? readme
    ??? zip.txt

daniel@hidmo:/tmp/tutorial$ zip -r tutorial.zip zip-tutorial/
  adding: zip-tutorial/ (stored 0%)
  adding: zip-tutorial/zip.txt (deflated 55%)
  adding: zip-tutorial/chapter-2/ (stored 0%)
  adding: zip-tutorial/chapter-2/readme (deflated 55%)
  adding: zip-tutorial/chapter-1/ (stored 0%)
  adding: zip-tutorial/chapter-1/content (deflated 57%)

Basically we use “zip -r DESTINATION-FILE.ZIP FOLDER-TO-COMPRESS” to compress directory. Or in short “zip -r DESTINATION-FILE DIRECTORY-TO-COMPRESS“, we can skip the .zip extension.

daniel@hidmo:/tmp/tutorial$ zip -r tutorial zip-tutorial/
updating: zip-tutorial/ (stored 0%)
  adding: zip-tutorial/zip.txt (deflated 55%)
  adding: zip-tutorial/chapter-2/ (stored 0%)
  adding: zip-tutorial/chapter-2/readme (deflated 55%)
  adding: zip-tutorial/chapter-1/ (stored 0%)
  adding: zip-tutorial/chapter-1/content (deflated 57%)

To view the contents of the compressed folder without uncompressing it –

daniel@hidmo:/tmp/tutorial$ unzip -l tutorial.zip 
Archive:  tutorial.zip
  Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
        0  2019-10-07 21:45   zip-tutorial/
     1202  2019-10-07 21:45   zip-tutorial/zip.txt
        0  2019-10-07 21:45   zip-tutorial/chapter-2/
     1202  2019-10-07 21:45   zip-tutorial/chapter-2/readme
        0  2019-10-07 21:44   zip-tutorial/chapter-1/
      722  2019-10-07 21:44   zip-tutorial/chapter-1/content
---------                     -------
     3126                     6 files

References –

https://linux.die.net/man/1/zip

https://superuser.com/questions/216617/view-list-of-files-in-zip-archive-on-linux