1 .TH ZLIB 3 "18 July 2005"

     2 .SH NAME

     3 zlib \- compression/decompression library

     4 .SH SYNOPSIS

     5 [see

     6 .I zlib.h

     7 for full description]

     8 .SH DESCRIPTION

     9 The

    10 .I zlib

    11 library is a general purpose data compression library.

    12 The code is thread safe.

    13 It provides in-memory compression and decompression functions,

    14 including integrity checks of the uncompressed data.

    15 This version of the library supports only one compression method (deflation)

    16 but other algorithms will be added later

    17 and will have the same stream interface.

    18 .LP

    19 Compression can be done in a single step if the buffers are large enough

    20 (for example if an input file is mmap'ed),

    21 or can be done by repeated calls of the compression function.

    22 In the latter case,

    23 the application must provide more input and/or consume the output

    24 (providing more output space) before each call.

    25 .LP

    26 The library also supports reading and writing files in

    27 .IR gzip (1)

    28 (.gz) format

    29 with an interface similar to that of stdio.

    30 .LP

    31 The library does not install any signal handler.

    32 The decoder checks the consistency of the compressed data,

    33 so the library should never crash even in case of corrupted input.

    34 .LP

    35 All functions of the compression library are documented in the file

    36 .IR zlib.h .

    37 The distribution source includes examples of use of the library

    38 in the files

    39 .I example.c

    40 and

    41 .IR minigzip.c .

    42 .LP

    43 Changes to this version are documented in the file

    44 .I ChangeLog

    45 that accompanies the source,

    46 and are concerned primarily with bug fixes and portability enhancements.

    47 .LP

    48 A Java implementation of

    49 .I zlib

    50 is available in the Java Development Kit 1.1:

    51 .IP

    52 http://www.javasoft.com/products/JDK/1.1/docs/api/Package-java.util.zip.html

    53 .LP

    54 A Perl interface to

    55 .IR zlib ,

    56 written by Paul Marquess (pmqs@cpan.org),

    57 is available at CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) sites,

    58 including:

    59 .IP

    60 http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Compress/

    61 .LP

    62 A Python interface to

    63 .IR zlib ,

    64 written by A.M. Kuchling (amk@magnet.com),

    65 is available in Python 1.5 and later versions:

    66 .IP

    67 http://www.python.org/doc/lib/module-zlib.html

    68 .LP

    69 A

    70 .I zlib

    71 binding for

    72 .IR tcl (1),

    73 written by Andreas Kupries (a.kupries@westend.com),

    74 is availlable at:

    75 .IP

    76 http://www.westend.com/~kupries/doc/trf/man/man.html

    77 .LP

    78 An experimental package to read and write files in .zip format,

    79 written on top of

    80 .I zlib

    81 by Gilles Vollant (info@winimage.com),

    82 is available at:

    83 .IP

    84 http://www.winimage.com/zLibDll/unzip.html

    85 and also in the

    86 .I contrib/minizip

    87 directory of the main

    88 .I zlib

    89 web site.

    90 .SH "SEE ALSO"

    91 The

    92 .I zlib

    93 web site can be found at either of these locations:

    94 .IP

    95 http://www.zlib.org

    96 .br

    97 http://www.gzip.org/zlib/

    98 .LP

    99 The data format used by the zlib library is described by RFC

   100 (Request for Comments) 1950 to 1952 in the files:

   101 .IP

   102 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1950.txt (concerning zlib format)

   103 .br

   104 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1951.txt (concerning deflate format)

   105 .br

   106 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1952.txt (concerning gzip format)

   107 .LP

   108 These documents are also available in other formats from:

   109 .IP

   110 ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/documents/zlib/zdoc-index.html

   111 .LP

   112 Mark Nelson (markn@ieee.org) wrote an article about

   113 .I zlib

   114 for the Jan. 1997 issue of  Dr. Dobb's Journal;

   115 a copy of the article is available at:

   116 .IP

   117 http://dogma.net/markn/articles/zlibtool/zlibtool.htm

   118 .SH "REPORTING PROBLEMS"

   119 Before reporting a problem,

   120 please check the

   121 .I zlib

   122 web site to verify that you have the latest version of

   123 .IR zlib ;

   124 otherwise,

   125 obtain the latest version and see if the problem still exists.

   126 Please read the

   127 .I zlib

   128 FAQ at:

   129 .IP

   130 http://www.gzip.org/zlib/zlib_faq.html

   131 .LP

   132 before asking for help.

   133 Send questions and/or comments to zlib@gzip.org,

   134 or (for the Windows DLL version) to Gilles Vollant (info@winimage.com).

   135 .SH AUTHORS

   136 Version 1.2.3

   137 Copyright (C) 1995-2005 Jean-loup Gailly (jloup@gzip.org)

   138 and Mark Adler (madler@alumni.caltech.edu).

   139 .LP

   140 This software is provided "as-is,"

   141 without any express or implied warranty.

   142 In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages

   143 arising from the use of this software.

   144 See the distribution directory with respect to requirements

   145 governing redistribution.

   146 The deflate format used by

   147 .I zlib

   148 was defined by Phil Katz.

   149 The deflate and

   150 .I zlib

   151 specifications were written by L. Peter Deutsch.

   152 Thanks to all the people who reported problems and suggested various

   153 improvements in

   154 .IR zlib ;

   155 who are too numerous to cite here.

   156 .LP

   157 UNIX manual page by R. P. C. Rodgers,

   158 U.S. National Library of Medicine (rodgers@nlm.nih.gov).

   159 .\" end of man page