summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/README
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'README')
-rw-r--r--README52
1 files changed, 28 insertions, 24 deletions
diff --git a/README b/README
index 54b677a..e7f7d30 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -1,27 +1,28 @@
Description
Lzip is a lossless data compressor with a user interface similar to the
-one of gzip or bzip2. Lzip can compress about as fast as gzip (lzip -0),
+one of gzip or bzip2. Lzip can compress about as fast as gzip (lzip -0)
or compress most files more than bzip2 (lzip -9). Decompression speed is
intermediate between gzip and bzip2. Lzip is better than gzip and bzip2
-from a data recovery perspective.
+from a data recovery perspective. Lzip has been designed, written and
+tested with great care to replace gzip and bzip2 as the standard
+general-purpose compressed format for unix-like systems.
-The lzip file format is designed for data sharing and long-term
-archiving, taking into account both data integrity and decoder
-availability:
+The lzip file format is designed for data sharing and long-term archiving,
+taking into account both data integrity and decoder availability:
* The lzip format provides very safe integrity checking and some data
- recovery means. The lziprecover program can repair bit-flip errors
+ recovery means. The lziprecover program can repair bit flip errors
(one of the most common forms of data corruption) in lzip files,
and provides data recovery capabilities, including error-checked
merging of damaged copies of a file.
* The lzip format is as simple as possible (but not simpler). The
- lzip manual provides the source code of a simple decompressor along
- with a detailed explanation of how it works, so that with the only
- help of the lzip manual it would be possible for a digital
- archaeologist to extract the data from a lzip file long after
- quantum computers eventually render LZMA obsolete.
+ lzip manual provides the source code of a simple decompressor
+ along with a detailed explanation of how it works, so that with
+ the only help of the lzip manual it would be possible for a
+ digital archaeologist to extract the data from a lzip file long
+ after quantum computers eventually render LZMA obsolete.
* Additionally the lzip reference implementation is copylefted, which
guarantees that it will remain free forever.
@@ -33,13 +34,12 @@ corrupt byte near the beginning is a thing of the past.
Lzip uses the same well-defined exit status values used by bzip2, which
makes it safer than compressors returning ambiguous warning values (like
-gzip) when it is used as a back end for other programs like tar or
-zutils.
+gzip) when it is used as a back end for other programs like tar or zutils.
-Lzip will automatically use the smallest possible dictionary size for
-each file without exceeding the given limit. Keep in mind that the
-decompression memory requirement is affected at compression time by the
-choice of dictionary size limit.
+Lzip will automatically use for each file the largest dictionary size
+that does not exceed neither the file size nor the limit given. Keep in
+mind that the decompression memory requirement is affected at
+compression time by the choice of dictionary size limit.
The amount of memory required for compression is about 1 or 2 times the
dictionary size limit (1 if input file size is less than dictionary size
@@ -59,22 +59,22 @@ anyothername becomes anyothername.out
(De)compressing a file is much like copying or moving it; therefore lzip
preserves the access and modification dates, permissions, and, when
-possible, ownership of the file just as "cp -p" does. (If the user ID or
+possible, ownership of the file just as 'cp -p' does. (If the user ID or
the group ID can't be duplicated, the file permission bits S_ISUID and
S_ISGID are cleared).
Lzip is able to read from some types of non regular files if the
-"--stdout" option is specified.
+'--stdout' option is specified.
If no file names are specified, lzip compresses (or decompresses) from
standard input to standard output. In this case, lzip will decline to
write compressed output to a terminal, as this would be entirely
incomprehensible and therefore pointless.
-Lzip will correctly decompress a file which is the concatenation of two
-or more compressed files. The result is the concatenation of the
-corresponding decompressed files. Integrity testing of concatenated
-compressed files is also supported.
+Lzip will correctly decompress a file which is the concatenation of two or
+more compressed files. The result is the concatenation of the corresponding
+decompressed files. Integrity testing of concatenated compressed files is
+also supported.
Lzip can produce multimember files, and lziprecover can safely recover
the undamaged members in case of file damage. Lzip can also split the
@@ -110,8 +110,12 @@ the definition of Markov chains), G.N.N. Martin (for the definition of
range encoding), Igor Pavlov (for putting all the above together in
LZMA), and Julian Seward (for bzip2's CLI).
+LANGUAGE NOTE: Uncompressed = not compressed = plain data; it may never
+have been compressed. Decompressed is used to refer to data which have
+undergone the process of decompression.
-Copyright (C) 2008-2018 Antonio Diaz Diaz.
+
+Copyright (C) 2008-2019 Antonio Diaz Diaz.
This file is free documentation: you have unlimited permission to copy,
distribute and modify it.