1 ZLIB DATA COMPRESSION LIBRARY 2 3 zlib 1.2.8 is a general purpose data compression library. All the code is 4 thread safe. The data format used by the zlib library is described by RFCs 5 (Request for Comments) 1950 to 1952 in the files 6 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1950 (zlib format), rfc1951 (deflate format) and 7 rfc1952 (gzip format). 8 9 All functions of the compression library are documented in the file zlib.h 10 (volunteer to write man pages welcome, contact zlib@gzip.org). A usage example 11 of the library is given in the file test/example.c which also tests that 12 the library is working correctly. Another example is given in the file 13 test/minigzip.c. The compression library itself is composed of all source 14 files in the root directory. 15 16 To compile all files and run the test program, follow the instructions given at 17 the top of Makefile.in. In short "./configure; make test", and if that goes 18 well, "make install" should work for most flavors of Unix. For Windows, use 19 one of the special makefiles in win32/ or contrib/vstudio/ . For VMS, use 20 make_vms.com. 21 22 Questions about zlib should be sent to <zlib@gzip.org>, or to Gilles Vollant 23 <info@winimage.com> for the Windows DLL version. The zlib home page is 24 http://zlib.net/ . Before reporting a problem, please check this site to 25 verify that you have the latest version of zlib; otherwise get the latest 26 version and check whether the problem still exists or not. 27 28 PLEASE read the zlib FAQ http://zlib.net/zlib_faq.html before asking for help. 29 30 Mark Nelson <markn@ieee.org> wrote an article about zlib for the Jan. 1997 31 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal; a copy of the article is available at 32 http://marknelson.us/1997/01/01/zlib-engine/ . 33 34 The changes made in version 1.2.8 are documented in the file ChangeLog. 35 36 Unsupported third party contributions are provided in directory contrib/ . 37 38 zlib is available in Java using the java.util.zip package, documented at 39 http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Programming/compression/ . 40 41 A Perl interface to zlib written by Paul Marquess <pmqs@cpan.org> is available 42 at CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) sites, including 43 http://search.cpan.org/~pmqs/IO-Compress-Zlib/ . 44 45 A Python interface to zlib written by A.M. Kuchling <amk@amk.ca> is 46 available in Python 1.5 and later versions, see 47 http://docs.python.org/library/zlib.html . 48 49 zlib is built into tcl: http://wiki.tcl.tk/4610 . 50 51 An experimental package to read and write files in .zip format, written on top 52 of zlib by Gilles Vollant <info@winimage.com>, is available in the 53 contrib/minizip directory of zlib. 54 55 56 Notes for some targets: 57 58 - For Windows DLL versions, please see win32/DLL_FAQ.txt 59 60 - For 64-bit Irix, deflate.c must be compiled without any optimization. With 61 -O, one libpng test fails. The test works in 32 bit mode (with the -n32 62 compiler flag). The compiler bug has been reported to SGI. 63 64 - zlib doesn't work with gcc 2.6.3 on a DEC 3000/300LX under OSF/1 2.1 it works 65 when compiled with cc. 66 67 - On Digital Unix 4.0D (formely OSF/1) on AlphaServer, the cc option -std1 is 68 necessary to get gzprintf working correctly. This is done by configure. 69 70 - zlib doesn't work on HP-UX 9.05 with some versions of /bin/cc. It works with 71 other compilers. Use "make test" to check your compiler. 72 73 - gzdopen is not supported on RISCOS or BEOS. 74 75 - For PalmOs, see http://palmzlib.sourceforge.net/ 76 77 78 Acknowledgments: 79 80 The deflate format used by zlib was defined by Phil Katz. The deflate and 81 zlib specifications were written by L. Peter Deutsch. Thanks to all the 82 people who reported problems and suggested various improvements in zlib; they 83 are too numerous to cite here. 84 85 Copyright notice: 86 87 (C) 1995-2013 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler 88 89 This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied 90 warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages 91 arising from the use of this software. 92 93 Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, 94 including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it 95 freely, subject to the following restrictions: 96 97 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not 98 claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software 99 in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be 100 appreciated but is not required. 101 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be 102 misrepresented as being the original software. 103 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution. 104 105 Jean-loup Gailly Mark Adler 106 jloup@gzip.org madler@alumni.caltech.edu 107 108 If you use the zlib library in a product, we would appreciate *not* receiving 109 lengthy legal documents to sign. The sources are provided for free but without 110 warranty of any kind. The library has been entirely written by Jean-loup 111 Gailly and Mark Adler; it does not include third-party code. 112 113 If you redistribute modified sources, we would appreciate that you include in 114 the file ChangeLog history information documenting your changes. Please read 115 the FAQ for more information on the distribution of modified source versions.