GNU bug report logs - #69788
zcat, zgrep and other (g)zutils' names

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From: wrotycz <wrotycz <at> wir.pl>
To: 69788 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#69788: zcat, zgrep and other (g)zutils' names
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 21:05:22 +0100

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zcat, z grep and other (g)zutils   Hello,  I noticed, not for the first time that zcat, zgrep and rest of the utils are ambiguously named. Neither gzip nor .gz does not begin with 'z'. All other compressors call their utils by the name of extension, like xzcat, lzcat, zstdgrep and so on. This is more logical and less confusing.  To make things worse, *nix Compress produces .Z files and that could be using 'z' as prefix for the names other its tools. It doesn't have ones but that's the point - it would be logical to use zcat for a compress' tool name, and 'gzcat' fo gzip cat tool.  And the last and not least, these zXXX names collide with zutils' names, which are more 'generic', in a sense that they serve as a tools for many compressors, not only for gzip.   So, for the reasons mentioned above and to avoid confusion I propose to rename zcat, zgrep, etc., to gzcat, gzgrep, etc.  Hope you understand the request.   Regards  wrotycz

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