File	Date	Author	Commit
.gitignore	2010-01-29	Mike Frysinger	[8af565] start a gitignore
Acknowleds	2006-09-30	Mike Frysinger	[8d9e8c] cleanup code
COPYING	2006-09-30	Mike Frysinger	[8d9e8c] cleanup code
Changes	2006-11-15	Mike Frysinger	[a4bb1a] update
LZW.INFO	2006-09-30	Mike Frysinger	[8d9e8c] cleanup code
Makefile	2010-01-29	Mike Frysinger	[1ad5c5] check chown() return value
README	2006-09-30	Mike Frysinger	[a65c63] update
compress.1	2006-11-15	Mike Frysinger	[4151db] one more fix from Debian for highlighting of op...
compress.c	2012-08-25	Mike Frysinger	[408904] fix typo in version output
version	2006-09-30	Mike Frysinger	[8d9e8c] cleanup code
zcmp	2006-09-28	Mike Frysinger	[e7a71c] import last 4.2.4 release
zcmp.1	2006-09-28	Mike Frysinger	[e7a71c] import last 4.2.4 release
zdiff	2006-09-28	Mike Frysinger	[e7a71c] import last 4.2.4 release
zmore	2006-09-28	Mike Frysinger	[e7a71c] import last 4.2.4 release
zmore.1	2006-09-28	Mike Frysinger	[e7a71c] import last 4.2.4 release

Read Me

This is version 4.2 of (N)compress (an improved version of compress 4.1).

Compress is a fast, simple LZW file compressor.  Compress does not have
the highest compression rate, but it is one of the fastest programs to
compress data.  Compress is the defacto standard in the UNIX community
for compressing files.

To build (N)compress all you have to do is run make.  You can tweak the
compiler via the CC env var and build flags via the CFLAGS env var.

(N)compress 4.2 has a special, fast compression hash algorithm.  This
algorithm uses more memory than the old hash table. If you don't want
the faster hash table algorithm set 'Memory free for compress' below
800000.

zcmp, zdiff, zmore were copied from version 4.1 without any changes.

The output of (N)compress 4.2 is fully compatible with that of compress 3.0.
In other words, the output of (N)compress 4.2 may be fed into uncompress 3.0 or
the output of compress 3.0 may be fed into uncompress 4.2.

The output of (N)compress 4.2 is not compatible with that of
compress 2.0.  However, compress 4.2 still accepts the output of
compress 2.0.  To generate output that is compatible with compress
2.0, use the undocumented "-C" flag.

Send comments, complaints and especially patches relating to
	ncompress-devel@lists.sourceforge.net


REMARKS

- This version of compress is meant to be "modern".  It should work on all
  POSIX friendly systems and generally support for older standards is not
  wanted nor kept.

- The output if (N)compress 4.2 is not exactly the same as compress 4.0
  because of different table reset point. The output of (N)compress 4.2
  is 100% compatible with compress 4.0

- Some systems has performance problems with reads bigger than BUFSIZ
  (The read a head function is not working as expected). For those
  system use the default BSIZE input buffer size.

- (N)compress can by slower on small files (<10Kb) because of a great
  table reset overhead. Use cpio or tar to make 1 bigger file if
  possible, it is faster and also gives a better compression ratio most
  of the time.

- (N)compress is slower in vax systems because of removing some
  undocumented inline assembler.

- files compressed on a large machine with more bits than allowed by 
  a version of compress on a smaller machine cannot be decompressed!  Use the
  "-b12" flag to generate a file on a large machine that can be uncompressed 
  on a 16-bit machine.

- compatibility with compress 3.0 has not been tested in the 4.2 release of
  (N)compress.