how to zip the files if the no of files are too large

Not sure that I'm understanding, but if there are a lot of files you can always zip the directory that contains them.

zip myfiles.zip files/

If all else fails, zip them up in groups.

zip myfiles1.zip filesA/ filesB/
zip myfiles2.zip filesC/ filesD/

IN order to zip a directory containing files , do i need to specify the name of the files or just the name of the directory containing the files

My bad, I forgot to mention that when you zip a directory you have to specify that you want to recurse into the directory(s).

Do the following if you want to zip a directory called files:

zip -r files.zip files/

again its giving an error that its too many arguments..

Copy and paste what you're typing and the error it's throwing.

its working now... is there any command in combination , which removes the files which are zipped , becaz we have all those files in .zip file

Yeah, you can always run the following WITH EXTREME CAUTION as it will delete the entire directory without asking if you're sure.

rm files/ -rf

I once accidently did this to my /usr directory and then spent the next few hours backing up and reinstalling everything.

i dont want to remove the entire directoly only those files from the directoly which are zipped.. because everyday some or the other files are generated...

Your best bet is to create a bash script that moves files to be zipped to a separate directory, zip them, and then delete them. This would allow your main directory to continue to collect new files and not be mixed with those that you have already zipped and will be deleted.

Create a file called zipper.sh (or something like that) and make it executable:

chmod 755 zipper.sh

Using an editor of choice add the following (swapping out your directory and file names) in the directory just above those you'll be working with (ie. /usr/local):

Run the file from within the directory by typing:

./zipper.sh

but the problem is i cant move the files (change the path), becoz i m using those files later on..otherwise i will have to change the path in all the script..
what this option zip -n does

Here is the help piece printed out from zip. It looks like you're going to need to distinguish already zipped files from those that have not been.

-n allows you to specify a list of suffixes (ie. .txt, .exe, .pdf, etc.) to not compress.
-i and -x allow you to include or exclude in a similar fashion.

If you want to go off of whether the the file is new or changed then use the -u flag.

-------------------------------------------
Copyright (C) 1990-1999 Info-ZIP
Type 'zip "-L"' for software license.
Zip 2.3 (November 29th 1999). Usage:
zip [-options] [-b path] [-t mmddyyyy] [-n suffixes] [zipfile list] [-xi list]

The default action is to add or replace zipfile entries from list, which can include the special name - to compress standard input.

If zipfile and list are omitted, zip compresses stdin to stdout.

-f freshen: only changed files
-u update: only changed or new files
-d delete entries in zipfile
-m move into zipfile (delete files)
-r recurse into directories
-j junk (don't record) directory names
-0 store only
-l convert LF to CR LF (-ll CR LF to LF)
-1 compress faster
-9 compress better
-q quiet operation
-v verbose operation/print version info
-c add one-line comments
-z add zipfile comment
-@ read names from stdin
-o make zipfile as old as latest entry
-x exclude the following names
-i include only the following names
-F fix zipfile (-FF try harder)
-D do not add directory entries
-A adjust self-extracting exe
-J junk zipfile prefix (unzipsfx)
-T test zipfile integrity
-X eXclude eXtra file attributes
-y store symbolic links as the link instead of the referenced file
-R PKZIP recursion (see manual)
-h show this help
-n don't compress these suffixes
-------------------------------------------

i think we can go for -m option

Good luck, and remember to always automate - that's what programming is all about.

bash: /bin/rm: argument list too long...
while removing i m getting this error