Unzip only limited number of files in linux

Question

I have a zipped file containing 10,000 compressed files. Is there a Linux command/bash script to unzip only 1,000 files ? Note that all compressed files have same extension.

Answer 1

unzip -Z1 test.zip | head -1000 | sed 's| |\\ |g' | xargs unzip test.zip

• -Z1 provides a raw list of files
• sed expression encodes spaces (works everywhere, including MacOS)

Answer 2

You can use wildcards to select a subset of files. E.g.

• Extract all contained files beginning with b:

  unzip some.zip b*

• Extract all contained files whose name ends with y:

  unzip some.zip *y.extension

You can either select a wildcard pattern that is close enough, or examine the output of unzip -l some.zip closely to determine a pattern or set of patterns that will get you exactly the right number.