gzip: "Value too large for defined data type"

You may receive this error when using gzip to compress files larger than 4 gigabytes in size. The gzip executable provided in Solaris 8 cannot compress files of this size, as illustrated by this example.

# ls -l maillog.0
-rw-r--r--   1 root     other    25050791936 Dec 16 04:34 maillog.0

# /usr/bin/gzip maillog.0
maillog.0: Value too large for defined data type

# grep "/usr/bin/gzip" /var/sadm/install/contents
/usr/bin/gunzip=../../usr/bin/gzip l none SUNWgzip
/usr/bin/gzcat=../../usr/bin/gzip l none SUNWgzip
/usr/bin/gzip f none 0555 root bin 61032 28158 1019010579 SUNWgzip

# pkginfo -l SUNWgzip
   PKGINST:  SUNWgzip
      NAME:  The GNU Zip (gzip) compression utility
  CATEGORY:  system
      ARCH:  sparc
   VERSION:  11.8.0,REV=2000.01.08.18.12
   BASEDIR:  /
    VENDOR:  Sun Microsystems, Inc.
      DESC:  The GNU Zip (gzip) compression utility
    PSTAMP:  on28-patch20020416193049
  INSTDATE:  Mar 11 2003 16:37
   HOTLINE:  Please contact your local service provider
    STATUS:  completely installed
     FILES:       25 installed pathnames
                   5 shared pathnames
                   2 linked files
                   5 directories
                   8 executables
                 208 blocks used (approx)

To compress files larger than 4 gigabytes in size, build and install gzip with support for these large files, or use the gzip package 1.3.x or newer from Sunfreeware.

More information:
http://www.gzip.org/#faq10

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Last modified: 12/20/2004