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zcat bug on mac osx

zcat bug on mac osx

There's a bug on Mac OS X's (Lion) default zcat utility that appends a ".Z" suffix to your .gz files automatically.

I discovered it when running a shell script to copy/download a remote postgresql database dump zipped up in .gz format and when I tried to unarchive it.

  1. calvin$ ./fetch_server_db.sh

  2. remote db dump (gzip)

  3. copying remote dump to localhost

  4. pg_dump_2011-10-17_16-06-36.db.gz                                                                                                               100%  881KB 220.2KB/s   00:04   

  5. deleting remote file

  6. loading dump in local db

  7. ALTER SCHEMA

  8. zcat: pg_dump_2011-10-17_16-06-36.db.gz.Z: No such file or directory

THE FIX

Fortunately for us, there's another utility on Mac OS X called gzcat which works perfectly fine.  And since most of my colleagues use the same zcat command in my shell script, I decided to replace my broken zcat utility like that:-

  1. calvin$ sudo mv /usr/bin/zcat /usr/bin/broken-zcat

  2. 

  3. calvin$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gzcat /usr/bin/zcat
A temporary bandaid of sorts until I can dig deeper to find out what's wrong with my particular version of zcat on Mac OS X.  Just so we know, my broken zcat version is:-

  1. calvin$ broken-zcat --version

  2. broken-zcat 1.3.12

  3. Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

  4. Copyright (C) 1993 Jean-loup Gailly.

  5. This is free software.  You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of

  6. the GNU General Public License <http: www.gnu.org="" licenses="" gpl.html="">.

  7. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

  8. 

  9. Written by Jean-loup Gailly.</http:>
This goes into my TODO list.


Category: OS X


Tagged as: lion zcat



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