---
name: "paq8l"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "paq8l"
version: "20070308-2"
release: "Debian 5.0 (Lenny)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/paq8l"
---

# paq8l(1)

file compressor and archiver

## NAME

paq8l - file compressor and archiver

## SYNOPSIS

**paq8l** \[*-N*\] file1 \[file2...\] \[dir\]\
 **paq8l** \[*-d*\] file1.paq8l \[dir2\]\

## DESCRIPTION

Paq8l is one of a series of open source data compression archivers that  have evolved through collaborative development to top rankings on  several benchmarks measuring compression ratio (although at the expense  of speed and memory usage). The paq compressors use context mixing:  a large number of models estimate the probability that the next bit of  data will be a 0 or 1. These predictions are combined and arithmetic  coded (similar to PPM). In paq6, predictions are combined by weighted  averaging, then adjusting the weights to favor the most accurate models. Paq7 and later differ mainly in that model predictions are combined  using a neural network rather than by weighted averaging.

## OPTIONS

- \-N

  **This option specifies a compression level ranging from -0**
   (fastest) to -8 (smallest).  The default is -5.

- \-d

  **Is used when decompressing.**\

## NOTES

The compressed output file is named by adding ".paq8l" extension to
 the first named file (file1.paq8l).

Entering paq8l without an argument will display a short help.

## SEE ALSO

/usr/share/doc/paq8l/readme.txt