GNU bug report logs - #33070
Underlying Gzip library

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Charlie Sale <softwaresale01 <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-gzip <at> gnu.org
Subject: Underlying Gzip library
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2018 19:12:07 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hello Gzip.

I am new to this project, and I read on the TODO file that there is a plan
to move the compression and decompression code into a library that gzip
would run on top of. Is this still a planned feature? If so, I am
interested in giving it a shot.

Would this be welcomed?

Thanks
Charlie

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #8 received at 33070 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Mark Adler <madler <at> alumni.caltech.edu>
To: Charlie Sale <softwaresale01 <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 33070 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#33070: Underlying Gzip library
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2018 17:58:04 -0700

Charlie,

The library you speak of was created about 23 years ago. It’s called “zlib”. That TODO file looks like it hasn’t changed much in the last quarter century.

As for gzip making use of that library, that has not yet occurred. And probably doesn’t need to. There does exist another implementation of gzip called “pigz” which in fact uses zlib for compression and decompression. (It also offers parallel compression.)

Mark


> On Oct 16, 2018, at 5:12 PM, Charlie Sale <softwaresale01 <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello Gzip.
> 
> I am new to this project, and I read on the TODO file that there is a plan
> to move the compression and decompression code into a library that gzip
> would run on top of. Is this still a planned feature? If so, I am
> interested in giving it a shot.
> 
> Would this be welcomed?
> 
> Thanks
> Charlie

Message #11 received at 33070 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net>
To: Mark Adler <madler <at> alumni.caltech.edu>
Cc: 33070 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, softwaresale01 <at> gmail.com
Subject: Re: bug#33070: Underlying Gzip library
Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2018 15:51:21 +0300

tags 33070 + notabug
close 33070
thanks

On Wed, Oct 17, 2018 at 3:59 AM Mark Adler <madler <at> alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
> The library you speak of was created about 23 years ago. It’s called “zlib”. That TODO file looks like it hasn’t changed much in the last quarter century.
>
> As for gzip making use of that library, that has not yet occurred. And probably doesn’t need to. There does exist another implementation of gzip called “pigz” which in fact uses zlib for compression and decompression. (It also offers parallel compression.)

Thanks for replying, Mark.
On that basis, I'll close this auto-created "issue", but that needn't
stop any conversation.
Feel free to reply on this thread.

Message #14 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Sergey Ponomarev <stokito <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-gzip <at> gnu.org
Subject: bug#33070: Underlying Gzip library
Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2019 23:29:04 +0300

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

> There does exist another implementation of gzip
> called “pigz” which in fact uses zlib for compression and decompression.

Maybe it anyway makes a sense to migrate gzip to zlib? For example OpenWrt
which is Linux distro for very limited routers has both gzip and zlib. So
if gzip can reuse zlib then it may be smaller in size which is very
important for devices with 4mb of disk.

Also in the letter "bug#31065: Version 2??" I found that Paul Eggert said:

> I have a more-drastic idea in mind. Let's replace gzip's source code with
pigz's, make the minimal set of changes needed to make it compatible with
gzip and/or GNU in general, and call it gzip 2.0.

I like this idea too because then all distributives just update gzip and
everything should work without rewriting scripts who using gzip.

Is any progress on this? Could you make an official announce about this?

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #17 received at 33070 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Sergey Ponomarev <stokito <at> gmail.com>, 33070 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#33070: Underlying Gzip library
Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2019 18:10:21 -0700

On 9/7/19 1:29 PM, Sergey Ponomarev wrote:
> Is any progress on this? Could you make an official announce about this?

Yes, we've been working about it. It's not ready yet, though.

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