I have two huge files on AIX Ver 5.0. File size of each file is 6238884375 bytes. There is huge difference in sizes when I zip them by gzip coomand.
File1.gz 586147513
File2.gz 547585695
Any idea why it is so?
Thanks
Sumit
because the data in one of the files are easier to compress than the data in the other file.
When compressing a file the compression algorithm tries to describe as large a quantity of a file as compressed as possible, if this description has to say "next 1209 bytes needs to be 0" as opposed to "next 124324 bytes needs to be 0" the second one will be represented with less space consuming description than the first one.
they can't be the same file then.
before you gzip then what is the output of du -sk and cksum on each file?