---
layout: page
category-title: Intermediate commands
category-page: intermediate
tags: 
author: Andrea Brites Marto
title: 7z
---

<p>
	A .7z. file is an archive format that stands for 7-zip. By default, Mac OS X does not know how to handle these files, but that is not a big deal because you can download for free in App Store. The program supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB.<br>

	So, first of all, you need to download Unarchiver in order to use this command.<br>

	The basic syntax is:

	<pre> 
		7z [adeltux] [-] [SWITCH] <code>&lt;ARCHIVE_NAME&gt; &lt;ARGUMENTS&gt;</code>
	</pre>

	Here some useful options that we will use to explain some examples:

	<ul>
		<li><code>a</code> Add</li>
		<li><code>d</code> Delete</li>
		<li><code>e</code> Extract</li>
		<li><code>l</code> List</li>
		<li><code>t</code> Test</li>
		<li><code>u</code> Update</li>
		<li><code>x</code> Extract with full paths</li>
	</ul>

	The simplest way to use <code>7z</code> if we want to extracts all files from archive archive.zip to the current directory.

	<pre> 
		7z e archive.zip
	</pre>

	Well, now we talk about the switches.
	There are many type of switches, we will see the most common ones.<br>

	-m (Set compression Method)

	<pre> 
		-m&lt;method_parameters&gt;
	</pre>

	The format for this switch depends on the archive type which are:
	<ul>
		<li>Zip</li>
		<li>GZip</li>
		<li>BZip2</li>
		<li>7z</li>
		<li>XZ</li>
		<li>WIM</li>
	</ul>








</p>