LPIC-1 GNU and Unix Commands Practice Question
Which TWO commands can be used to display the contents of a compressed text file (e.g., .gz, .bz2) directly to standard output without decompressing to disk?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse zcat with gzcat (which is not standard) or think zless is equivalent to zcat, when in fact zless is a pager that does not output continuously to stdout.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
bzcat
(bzcat) is correct because it reads bzip2-compressed files (.bz2) and decompresses them directly to standard output without creating a decompressed file on disk. Option E (zcat) is correct because it does the same for gzip-compressed files (.gz), acting as a front-end to gzip -dc.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
gzcat
Why it's wrong here
gzcat is not a standard command; zcat is used for .gz files.
- ✗
zless
Why it's wrong here
zless is interactive and does not output directly to stdout like a pipe.
- ✓
bzcat
Why this is correct
bzcat decompresses .bz2 files to stdout.
- ✗
lzcat
Why it's wrong here
lzcat is for .lzma files, not .gz or .bz2.
- ✓
zcat
Why this is correct
zcat decompresses .gz files to stdout.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This LPIC-1 practice question is part of Courseiva's free LPI certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the LPIC-1 exam.