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2 This is the README for bzip2/libzip2. | |
3 This version is fully compatible with the previous public releases. | |
4 | |
5 ------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
6 This file is part of bzip2/libbzip2, a program and library for | |
7 lossless, block-sorting data compression. | |
8 | |
9 bzip2/libbzip2 version 1.0.6 of 6 September 2010 | |
10 Copyright (C) 1996-2010 Julian Seward <jseward@bzip.org> | |
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12 Please read the WARNING, DISCLAIMER and PATENTS sections in this file. | |
13 | |
14 This program is released under the terms of the license contained | |
15 in the file LICENSE. | |
16 ------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
17 | |
18 Complete documentation is available in Postscript form (manual.ps), | |
19 PDF (manual.pdf) or html (manual.html). A plain-text version of the | |
20 manual page is available as bzip2.txt. | |
21 | |
22 | |
23 HOW TO BUILD -- UNIX | |
24 | |
25 Type 'make'. This builds the library libbz2.a and then the programs | |
26 bzip2 and bzip2recover. Six self-tests are run. If the self-tests | |
27 complete ok, carry on to installation: | |
28 | |
29 To install in /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/lib, /usr/local/man and | |
30 /usr/local/include, type | |
31 | |
32 make install | |
33 | |
34 To install somewhere else, eg, /xxx/yyy/{bin,lib,man,include}, type | |
35 | |
36 make install PREFIX=/xxx/yyy | |
37 | |
38 If you are (justifiably) paranoid and want to see what 'make install' | |
39 is going to do, you can first do | |
40 | |
41 make -n install or | |
42 make -n install PREFIX=/xxx/yyy respectively. | |
43 | |
44 The -n instructs make to show the commands it would execute, but not | |
45 actually execute them. | |
46 | |
47 | |
48 HOW TO BUILD -- UNIX, shared library libbz2.so. | |
49 | |
50 Do 'make -f Makefile-libbz2_so'. This Makefile seems to work for | |
51 Linux-ELF (RedHat 7.2 on an x86 box), with gcc. I make no claims | |
52 that it works for any other platform, though I suspect it probably | |
53 will work for most platforms employing both ELF and gcc. | |
54 | |
55 bzip2-shared, a client of the shared library, is also built, but not | |
56 self-tested. So I suggest you also build using the normal Makefile, | |
57 since that conducts a self-test. A second reason to prefer the | |
58 version statically linked to the library is that, on x86 platforms, | |
59 building shared objects makes a valuable register (%ebx) unavailable | |
60 to gcc, resulting in a slowdown of 10%-20%, at least for bzip2. | |
61 | |
62 Important note for people upgrading .so's from 0.9.0/0.9.5 to version | |
63 1.0.X. All the functions in the library have been renamed, from (eg) | |
64 bzCompress to BZ2_bzCompress, to avoid namespace pollution. | |
65 Unfortunately this means that the libbz2.so created by | |
66 Makefile-libbz2_so will not work with any program which used an older | |
67 version of the library. I do encourage library clients to make the | |
68 effort to upgrade to use version 1.0, since it is both faster and more | |
69 robust than previous versions. | |
70 | |
71 | |
72 HOW TO BUILD -- Windows 95, NT, DOS, Mac, etc. | |
73 | |
74 It's difficult for me to support compilation on all these platforms. | |
75 My approach is to collect binaries for these platforms, and put them | |
76 on the master web site (http://www.bzip.org). Look there. However | |
77 (FWIW), bzip2-1.0.X is very standard ANSI C and should compile | |
78 unmodified with MS Visual C. If you have difficulties building, you | |
79 might want to read README.COMPILATION.PROBLEMS. | |
80 | |
81 At least using MS Visual C++ 6, you can build from the unmodified | |
82 sources by issuing, in a command shell: | |
83 | |
84 nmake -f makefile.msc | |
85 | |
86 (you may need to first run the MSVC-provided script VCVARS32.BAT | |
87 so as to set up paths to the MSVC tools correctly). | |
88 | |
89 | |
90 VALIDATION | |
91 | |
92 Correct operation, in the sense that a compressed file can always be | |
93 decompressed to reproduce the original, is obviously of paramount | |
94 importance. To validate bzip2, I used a modified version of Mark | |
95 Nelson's churn program. Churn is an automated test driver which | |
96 recursively traverses a directory structure, using bzip2 to compress | |
97 and then decompress each file it encounters, and checking that the | |
98 decompressed data is the same as the original. | |
99 | |
100 | |
101 | |
102 Please read and be aware of the following: | |
103 | |
104 WARNING: | |
105 | |
106 This program and library (attempts to) compress data by | |
107 performing several non-trivial transformations on it. | |
108 Unless you are 100% familiar with *all* the algorithms | |
109 contained herein, and with the consequences of modifying them, | |
110 you should NOT meddle with the compression or decompression | |
111 machinery. Incorrect changes can and very likely *will* | |
112 lead to disastrous loss of data. | |
113 | |
114 | |
115 DISCLAIMER: | |
116 | |
117 I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA ARISING FROM THE | |
118 USE OF THIS PROGRAM/LIBRARY, HOWSOEVER CAUSED. | |
119 | |
120 Every compression of a file implies an assumption that the | |
121 compressed file can be decompressed to reproduce the original. | |
122 Great efforts in design, coding and testing have been made to | |
123 ensure that this program works correctly. However, the complexity | |
124 of the algorithms, and, in particular, the presence of various | |
125 special cases in the code which occur with very low but non-zero | |
126 probability make it impossible to rule out the possibility of bugs | |
127 remaining in the program. DO NOT COMPRESS ANY DATA WITH THIS | |
128 PROGRAM UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED TO ACCEPT THE POSSIBILITY, HOWEVER | |
129 SMALL, THAT THE DATA WILL NOT BE RECOVERABLE. | |
130 | |
131 That is not to say this program is inherently unreliable. | |
132 Indeed, I very much hope the opposite is true. bzip2/libbzip2 | |
133 has been carefully constructed and extensively tested. | |
134 | |
135 | |
136 PATENTS: | |
137 | |
138 To the best of my knowledge, bzip2/libbzip2 does not use any | |
139 patented algorithms. However, I do not have the resources | |
140 to carry out a patent search. Therefore I cannot give any | |
141 guarantee of the above statement. | |
142 | |
143 | |
144 | |
145 WHAT'S NEW IN 0.9.0 (as compared to 0.1pl2) ? | |
146 | |
147 * Approx 10% faster compression, 30% faster decompression | |
148 * -t (test mode) is a lot quicker | |
149 * Can decompress concatenated compressed files | |
150 * Programming interface, so programs can directly read/write .bz2 files | |
151 * Less restrictive (BSD-style) licensing | |
152 * Flag handling more compatible with GNU gzip | |
153 * Much more documentation, i.e., a proper user manual | |
154 * Hopefully, improved portability (at least of the library) | |
155 | |
156 WHAT'S NEW IN 0.9.5 ? | |
157 | |
158 * Compression speed is much less sensitive to the input | |
159 data than in previous versions. Specifically, the very | |
160 slow performance caused by repetitive data is fixed. | |
161 * Many small improvements in file and flag handling. | |
162 * A Y2K statement. | |
163 | |
164 WHAT'S NEW IN 1.0.0 ? | |
165 | |
166 See the CHANGES file. | |
167 | |
168 WHAT'S NEW IN 1.0.2 ? | |
169 | |
170 See the CHANGES file. | |
171 | |
172 WHAT'S NEW IN 1.0.3 ? | |
173 | |
174 See the CHANGES file. | |
175 | |
176 WHAT'S NEW IN 1.0.4 ? | |
177 | |
178 See the CHANGES file. | |
179 | |
180 WHAT'S NEW IN 1.0.5 ? | |
181 | |
182 See the CHANGES file. | |
183 | |
184 WHAT'S NEW IN 1.0.6 ? | |
185 | |
186 See the CHANGES file. | |
187 | |
188 | |
189 I hope you find bzip2 useful. Feel free to contact me at | |
190 jseward@bzip.org | |
191 if you have any suggestions or queries. Many people mailed me with | |
192 comments, suggestions and patches after the releases of bzip-0.15, | |
193 bzip-0.21, and bzip2 versions 0.1pl2, 0.9.0, 0.9.5, 1.0.0, 1.0.1, | |
194 1.0.2 and 1.0.3, and the changes in bzip2 are largely a result of this | |
195 feedback. I thank you for your comments. | |
196 | |
197 bzip2's "home" is http://www.bzip.org/ | |
198 | |
199 Julian Seward | |
200 jseward@bzip.org | |
201 Cambridge, UK. | |
202 | |
203 18 July 1996 (version 0.15) | |
204 25 August 1996 (version 0.21) | |
205 7 August 1997 (bzip2, version 0.1) | |
206 29 August 1997 (bzip2, version 0.1pl2) | |
207 23 August 1998 (bzip2, version 0.9.0) | |
208 8 June 1999 (bzip2, version 0.9.5) | |
209 4 Sept 1999 (bzip2, version 0.9.5d) | |
210 5 May 2000 (bzip2, version 1.0pre8) | |
211 30 December 2001 (bzip2, version 1.0.2pre1) | |
212 15 February 2005 (bzip2, version 1.0.3) | |
213 20 December 2006 (bzip2, version 1.0.4) | |
214 10 December 2007 (bzip2, version 1.0.5) | |
215 6 Sept 2010 (bzip2, version 1.0.6) | |
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