This is /usr/src/bzip2/bzip2-1.0.6-1/build/bzip2.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.13 from /usr/src/bzip2/bzip2-1.0.6-1/src/bzip2-1.0.6/manual.texi.

START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Bzip2: (bzip2).               A program and library for data compression.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Top,  Next: Introduction,  Up: (dir)

bzip2 and libbzip2, version 1.0.6
*********************************

* Menu:

* Introduction::
* How to use bzip2::
* Programming with libbzip2::
* Miscellanea::

--- The Detailed Node Listing ---

How to use bzip2

* NAME::
* SYNOPSIS::
* DESCRIPTION::
* OPTIONS::
* MEMORY MANAGEMENT::
* RECOVERING DATA FROM DAMAGED FILES::
* PERFORMANCE NOTES::
* CAVEATS::
* AUTHOR::

 Programming with libbzip2

* Top-level structure::
* Error handling::
* Low-level interface: >Low-level interface.
* High-level interface::
* Utility functions::
* zlib compatibility functions::
* Using the library in a stdio-free environment::
* Making a Windows DLL::

Miscellanea

* Limitations of the compressed file format::
* Portability issues::
* Reporting bugs::
* Did you get the right package?::
* Further Reading::


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Introduction,  Next: How to use bzip2,  Prev: Top,  Up: Top

1 Introduction
**************

`bzip2' compresses files using the Burrows-Wheeler block-sorting text
compression algorithm, and Huffman coding. Compression is generally
considerably better than that achieved by more conventional
LZ77/LZ78-based compressors, and approaches the performance of the PPM
family of statistical compressors.

   `bzip2' is built on top of `libbzip2', a flexible library for
handling compressed data in the `bzip2' format. This manual describes
both how to use the program and how to work with the library interface.
Most of the manual is devoted to this library, not the program, which
is good news if your interest is only in the program.

   * *note How to use bzip2: How to use bzip2. describes how to use
     `bzip2'; this is the only part you need to read if you just want
     to know how to operate the program.

   * *note Programming with libbzip2: Programming with libbzip2.
     describes the programming interfaces in detail, and

   * *note Miscellanea: Miscellanea. records some miscellaneous notes
     which I thought ought to be recorded somewhere.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: How to use bzip2,  Next: Programming with libbzip2,  Prev: Introduction,  Up: Top

2 How to use bzip2
******************

This chapter contains a copy of the `bzip2' man page, and nothing else.

* Menu:

* NAME::
* SYNOPSIS::
* DESCRIPTION::
* OPTIONS::
* MEMORY MANAGEMENT::
* RECOVERING DATA FROM DAMAGED FILES::
* PERFORMANCE NOTES::
* CAVEATS::
* AUTHOR::


File: bzip2.info,  Node: NAME,  Next: SYNOPSIS,  Up: How to use bzip2

2.1 NAME
========

   * `bzip2', `bunzip2' - a block-sorting file compressor, v1.0.6

   * `bzcat' - decompresses files to stdout

   * `bzip2recover' - recovers data from damaged bzip2 files


File: bzip2.info,  Node: SYNOPSIS,  Next: DESCRIPTION,  Prev: NAME,  Up: How to use bzip2

2.2 SYNOPSIS
============

   * `bzip2' [ -cdfkqstvzVL123456789 ] [ filenames ... ]

   * `bunzip2' [ -fkvsVL ] [ filenames ... ]

   * `bzcat' [ -s ] [ filenames ... ]

   * `bzip2recover' filename


File: bzip2.info,  Node: DESCRIPTION,  Next: OPTIONS,  Prev: SYNOPSIS,  Up: How to use bzip2

2.3 DESCRIPTION
===============

`bzip2' compresses files using the Burrows-Wheeler block sorting text
compression algorithm, and Huffman coding. Compression is generally
considerably better than that achieved by more conventional
LZ77/LZ78-based compressors, and approaches the performance of the PPM
family of statistical compressors.

   The command-line options are deliberately very similar to those of
GNU `gzip', but they are not identical.

   `bzip2' expects a list of file names to accompany the command-line
flags. Each file is replaced by a compressed version of itself, with
the name `original_name.bz2'. Each compressed file has the same
modification date, permissions, and, when possible, ownership as the
corresponding original, so that these properties can be correctly
restored at decompression time.  File name handling is naive in the
sense that there is no mechanism for preserving original file names,
permissions, ownerships or dates in filesystems which lack these
concepts, or have serious file name length restrictions, such as MS-DOS.

   `bzip2' and `bunzip2' will by default not overwrite existing files.
If you want this to happen, specify the `-f' flag.

   If no file names are specified, `bzip2' compresses from standard
input to standard output. In this case, `bzip2' will decline to write
compressed output to a terminal, as this would be entirely
incomprehensible and therefore pointless.

   `bunzip2' (or `bzip2 -d') decompresses all specified files. Files
which were not created by `bzip2' will be detected and ignored, and a
warning issued.  `bzip2' attempts to guess the filename for the
decompressed file from that of the compressed file as follows:

   * `filename.bz2 ' becomes `filename'

   * `filename.bz ' becomes `filename'

   * `filename.tbz2' becomes `filename.tar'

   * `filename.tbz ' becomes `filename.tar'

   * `anyothername ' becomes `anyothername.out'

   If the file does not end in one of the recognised endings, `.bz2',
`.bz', `.tbz2' or `.tbz', `bzip2' complains that it cannot guess the
name of the original file, and uses the original name with `.out'
appended.

   As with compression, supplying no filenames causes decompression
from standard input to standard output.

   `bunzip2' will correctly decompress a file which is the
concatenation of two or more compressed files. The result is the
concatenation of the corresponding uncompressed files. Integrity testing
(`-t') of concatenated compressed files is also supported.

   You can also compress or decompress files to the standard output by
giving the `-c' flag.  Multiple files may be compressed and
decompressed like this. The resulting outputs are fed sequentially to
stdout. Compression of multiple files in this manner generates a stream
containing multiple compressed file representations. Such a stream can
be decompressed correctly only by `bzip2' version 0.9.0 or later.
Earlier versions of `bzip2' will stop after decompressing the first
file in the stream.

   `bzcat' (or `bzip2 -dc') decompresses all specified files to the
standard output.

   `bzip2' will read arguments from the environment variables `BZIP2'
and `BZIP', in that order, and will process them before any arguments
read from the command line.  This gives a convenient way to supply
default arguments.

   Compression is always performed, even if the compressed file is
slightly larger than the original. Files of less than about one hundred
bytes tend to get larger, since the compression mechanism has a
constant overhead in the region of 50 bytes.  Random data (including
the output of most file compressors) is coded at about 8.05 bits per
byte, giving an expansion of around 0.5%.

   As a self-check for your protection, `bzip2' uses 32-bit CRCs to make
sure that the decompressed version of a file is identical to the
original. This guards against corruption of the compressed data, and
against undetected bugs in `bzip2' (hopefully very unlikely).  The
chances of data corruption going undetected is microscopic, about one
chance in four billion for each file processed. Be aware, though, that
the check occurs upon decompression, so it can only tell you that
something is wrong. It can't help you recover the original uncompressed
data. You can use `bzip2recover' to try to recover data from damaged
files.

   Return values: 0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems
(file not found, invalid flags, I/O errors, etc.), 2 to indicate a
corrupt compressed file, 3 for an internal consistency error (eg, bug)
which caused `bzip2' to panic.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: OPTIONS,  Next: MEMORY MANAGEMENT,  Prev: DESCRIPTION,  Up: How to use bzip2

2.4 OPTIONS
===========

`-c --stdout'
     Compress or decompress to standard output.

`-d --decompress'
     Force decompression.  `bzip2', `bunzip2' and `bzcat' are really
     the same program, and the decision about what actions to take is
     done on the basis of which name is used. This flag overrides that
     mechanism, and forces bzip2 to decompress.

`-z --compress'
     The complement to `-d': forces compression, regardless of the
     invokation name.

`-t --test'
     Check integrity of the specified file(s), but don't decompress
     them. This really performs a trial decompression and throws away
     the result.

`-f --force'
     Force overwrite of output files. Normally, `bzip2' will not
     overwrite existing output files. Also forces `bzip2' to break hard
     links to files, which it otherwise wouldn't do.

     `bzip2' normally declines to decompress files which don't have the
     correct magic header bytes. If forced (`-f'), however, it will
     pass such files through unmodified. This is how GNU `gzip' behaves.

`-k --keep'
     Keep (don't delete) input files during compression or
     decompression.

`-s --small'
     Reduce memory usage, for compression, decompression and testing.
     Files are decompressed and tested using a modified algorithm which
     only requires 2.5 bytes per block byte. This means any file can be
     decompressed in 2300k of memory, albeit at about half the normal
     speed.

     During compression, `-s' selects a block size of 200k, which
     limits memory use to around the same figure, at the expense of
     your compression ratio. In short, if your machine is low on memory
     (8 megabytes or less), use `-s' for everything. See *note MEMORY
     MANAGEMENT: MEMORY MANAGEMENT. below.

`-q --quiet'
     Suppress non-essential warning messages.  Messages pertaining to
     I/O errors and other critical events will not be suppressed.

`-v --verbose'
     Verbose mode - show the compression ratio for each file processed.
     Further `-v''s increase the verbosity level, spewing out lots of
     information which is primarily of interest for diagnostic purposes.

`-L --license -V --version'
     Display the software version, license terms and conditions.

`-1' (or  `--fast') to  `-9' (or  `-best')
     Set the block size to 100 k, 200 k ... 900 k when compressing. Has
     no effect when decompressing. See *note MEMORY MANAGEMENT: MEMORY
     MANAGEMENT. below. The `--fast' and `--best' aliases are primarily
     for GNU `gzip' compatibility.  In particular, `--fast' doesn't
     make things significantly faster. And `--best' merely selects the
     default behaviour.

`--'
     Treats all subsequent arguments as file names, even if they start
     with a dash. This is so you can handle files with names beginning
     with a dash, for example: `bzip2 -- -myfilename'.

`--repetitive-fast'
`--repetitive-best'
     These flags are redundant in versions 0.9.5 and above. They
     provided some coarse control over the behaviour of the sorting
     algorithm in earlier versions, which was sometimes useful. 0.9.5
     and above have an improved algorithm which renders these flags
     irrelevant.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: MEMORY MANAGEMENT,  Next: RECOVERING DATA FROM DAMAGED FILES,  Prev: OPTIONS,  Up: How to use bzip2

2.5 MEMORY MANAGEMENT
=====================

`bzip2' compresses large files in blocks. The block size affects both
the compression ratio achieved, and the amount of memory needed for
compression and decompression. The flags `-1' through `-9' specify the
block size to be 100,000 bytes through 900,000 bytes (the default)
respectively. At decompression time, the block size used for
compression is read from the header of the compressed file, and
`bunzip2' then allocates itself just enough memory to decompress the
file. Since block sizes are stored in compressed files, it follows that
the flags `-1' to `-9' are irrelevant to and so ignored during
decompression.

   Compression and decompression requirements, in bytes, can be
estimated as:


     Compression:   400k + ( 8 x block size )

     Decompression: 100k + ( 4 x block size ), or
                    100k + ( 2.5 x block size )

   Larger block sizes give rapidly diminishing marginal returns. Most
of the compression comes from the first two or three hundred k of block
size, a fact worth bearing in mind when using `bzip2' on small machines.
It is also important to appreciate that the decompression memory
requirement is set at compression time by the choice of block size.

   For files compressed with the default 900k block size, `bunzip2'
will require about 3700 kbytes to decompress. To support decompression
of any file on a 4 megabyte machine, `bunzip2' has an option to
decompress using approximately half this amount of memory, about 2300
kbytes. Decompression speed is also halved, so you should use this
option only where necessary. The relevant flag is `-s'.

   In general, try and use the largest block size memory constraints
allow, since that maximises the compression achieved.  Compression and
decompression speed are virtually unaffected by block size.

   Another significant point applies to files which fit in a single
block - that means most files you'd encounter using a large block size.
The amount of real memory touched is proportional to the size of the
file, since the file is smaller than a block. For example, compressing
a file 20,000 bytes long with the flag `-9' will cause the compressor
to allocate around 7600k of memory, but only touch 400k + 20000 * 8 =
560 kbytes of it. Similarly, the decompressor will allocate 3700k but
only touch 100k + 20000 * 4 = 180 kbytes.

   Here is a table which summarises the maximum memory usage for
different block sizes. Also recorded is the total compressed size for
14 files of the Calgary Text Compression Corpus totalling 3,141,622
bytes. This column gives some feel for how compression varies with
block size. These figures tend to understate the advantage of larger
block sizes for larger files, since the Corpus is dominated by smaller
files.


             Compress   Decompress   Decompress   Corpus
     Flag     usage      usage       -s usage     Size

      -1      1200k       500k         350k      914704
      -2      2000k       900k         600k      877703
      -3      2800k      1300k         850k      860338
      -4      3600k      1700k        1100k      846899
      -5      4400k      2100k        1350k      845160
      -6      5200k      2500k        1600k      838626
      -7      6100k      2900k        1850k      834096
      -8      6800k      3300k        2100k      828642
      -9      7600k      3700k        2350k      828642


File: bzip2.info,  Node: RECOVERING DATA FROM DAMAGED FILES,  Next: PERFORMANCE NOTES,  Prev: MEMORY MANAGEMENT,  Up: How to use bzip2

2.6 RECOVERING DATA FROM DAMAGED FILES
======================================

`bzip2' compresses files in blocks, usually 900kbytes long. Each block
is handled independently. If a media or transmission error causes a
multi-block `.bz2' file to become damaged, it may be possible to
recover data from the undamaged blocks in the file.

   The compressed representation of each block is delimited by a 48-bit
pattern, which makes it possible to find the block boundaries with
reasonable certainty. Each block also carries its own 32-bit CRC, so
damaged blocks can be distinguished from undamaged ones.

   `bzip2recover' is a simple program whose purpose is to search for
blocks in `.bz2' files, and write each block out into its own `.bz2'
file. You can then use `bzip2 -t' to test the integrity of the
resulting files, and decompress those which are undamaged.

   `bzip2recover' takes a single argument, the name of the damaged
file, and writes a number of files `rec0001file.bz2',
`rec0002file.bz2', etc, containing the extracted blocks. The output
filenames are designed so that the use of wildcards in subsequent
processing - for example, `bzip2 -dc rec*file.bz2 > recovered_data' -
lists the files in the correct order.

   `bzip2recover' should be of most use dealing with large `.bz2'
files, as these will contain many blocks. It is clearly futile to use
it on damaged single-block files, since a damaged block cannot be
recovered. If you wish to minimise any potential data loss through
media or transmission errors, you might consider compressing with a
smaller block size.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: PERFORMANCE NOTES,  Next: CAVEATS,  Prev: RECOVERING DATA FROM DAMAGED FILES,  Up: How to use bzip2

2.7 PERFORMANCE NOTES
=====================

The sorting phase of compression gathers together similar strings in
the file. Because of this, files containing very long runs of repeated
symbols, like "aabaabaabaab ..." (repeated several hundred times) may
compress more slowly than normal.  Versions 0.9.5 and above fare much
better than previous versions in this respect. The ratio between
worst-case and average-case compression time is in the region of 10:1.
For previous versions, this figure was more like 100:1. You can use the
`-vvvv' option to monitor progress in great detail, if you want.

   Decompression speed is unaffected by these phenomena.

   `bzip2' usually allocates several megabytes of memory to operate in,
and then charges all over it in a fairly random fashion. This means
that performance, both for compressing and decompressing, is largely
determined by the speed at which your machine can service cache misses.
Because of this, small changes to the code to reduce the miss rate have
been observed to give disproportionately large performance
improvements. I imagine `bzip2' will perform best on machines with very
large caches.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: CAVEATS,  Next: AUTHOR,  Prev: PERFORMANCE NOTES,  Up: How to use bzip2

2.8 CAVEATS
===========

I/O error messages are not as helpful as they could be.  `bzip2' tries
hard to detect I/O errors and exit cleanly, but the details of what the
problem is sometimes seem rather misleading.

   This manual page pertains to version 1.0.6 of `bzip2'. Compressed
data created by this version is entirely forwards and backwards
compatible with the previous public releases, versions 0.1pl2, 0.9.0 and
0.9.5, 1.0.0, 1.0.1 and 1.0.2, but with the following exception: 0.9.0
and above can correctly decompress multiple concatenated compressed
files. 0.1pl2 cannot do this; it will stop after decompressing just the
first file in the stream.

   `bzip2recover' versions prior to 1.0.2 used 32-bit integers to
represent bit positions in compressed files, so it could not handle
compressed files more than 512 megabytes long. Versions 1.0.2 and above
use 64-bit ints on some platforms which support them (GNU supported
targets, and Windows). To establish whether or not `bzip2recover' was
built with such a limitation, run it without arguments. In any event
you can build yourself an unlimited version if you can recompile it with
`MaybeUInt64' set to be an unsigned 64-bit integer.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: AUTHOR,  Prev: CAVEATS,  Up: How to use bzip2

2.9 AUTHOR
==========

Julian Seward, `jseward@bzip.org'

   The ideas embodied in `bzip2' are due to (at least) the following
people: Michael Burrows and David Wheeler (for the block sorting
transformation), David Wheeler (again, for the Huffman coder), Peter
Fenwick (for the structured coding model in the original `bzip', and
many refinements), and Alistair Moffat, Radford Neal and Ian Witten
(for the arithmetic coder in the original `bzip'). I am much indebted
for their help, support and advice. See the manual in the source
distribution for pointers to sources of documentation. Christian von
Roques encouraged me to look for faster sorting algorithms, so as to
speed up compression. Bela Lubkin encouraged me to improve the
worst-case compression performance.  Donna Robinson XMLised the
documentation.  Many people sent patches, helped with portability
problems, lent machines, gave advice and were generally helpful.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Programming with libbzip2,  Next: Miscellanea,  Prev: How to use bzip2,  Up: Top

3 Programming with libbzip2
***************************

This chapter describes the programming interface to `libbzip2'.

   For general background information, particularly about memory use
and performance aspects, you'd be well advised to read *note How to use
bzip2: How to use bzip2. as well.

* Menu:

* Top-level structure::
* Error handling::
* Low-level interface: >Low-level interface.
* High-level interface::
* Utility functions::
* zlib compatibility functions::
* Using the library in a stdio-free environment::
* Making a Windows DLL::


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Top-level structure,  Next: Error handling,  Up: Programming with libbzip2

3.1 Top-level structure
=======================

`libbzip2' is a flexible library for compressing and decompressing data
in the `bzip2' data format. Although packaged as a single entity, it
helps to regard the library as three separate parts: the low level
interface, and the high level interface, and some utility functions.

   The structure of `libbzip2''s interfaces is similar to that of
Jean-loup Gailly's and Mark Adler's excellent `zlib' library.

   All externally visible symbols have names beginning `BZ2_'. This is
new in version 1.0. The intention is to minimise pollution of the
namespaces of library clients.

   To use any part of the library, you need to `#include <bzlib.h>'
into your sources.

* Menu:

* Low-level summary::
* High-level summary::
* Utility functions summary::


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Low-level summary,  Next: High-level summary,  Up: Top-level structure

3.1.1 Low-level summary
-----------------------

This interface provides services for compressing and decompressing data
in memory. There's no provision for dealing with files, streams or any
other I/O mechanisms, just straight memory-to-memory work. In fact,
this part of the library can be compiled without inclusion of
`stdio.h', which may be helpful for embedded applications.

   The low-level part of the library has no global variables and is
therefore thread-safe.

   Six routines make up the low level interface: `BZ2_bzCompressInit',
`BZ2_bzCompress', and `BZ2_bzCompressEnd' for compression, and a
corresponding trio `BZ2_bzDecompressInit', `BZ2_bzDecompress' and
`BZ2_bzDecompressEnd' for decompression. The `*Init' functions allocate
memory for compression/decompression and do other initialisations,
whilst the `*End' functions close down operations and release memory.

   The real work is done by `BZ2_bzCompress' and `BZ2_bzDecompress'.
These compress and decompress data from a user-supplied input buffer to
a user-supplied output buffer. These buffers can be any size; arbitrary
quantities of data are handled by making repeated calls to these
functions. This is a flexible mechanism allowing a consumer-pull style
of activity, or producer-push, or a mixture of both.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: High-level summary,  Next: Utility functions summary,  Prev: Low-level summary,  Up: Top-level structure

3.1.2 High-level summary
------------------------

This interface provides some handy wrappers around the low-level
interface to facilitate reading and writing `bzip2' format files
(`.bz2' files). The routines provide hooks to facilitate reading files
in which the `bzip2' data stream is embedded within some larger-scale
file structure, or where there are multiple `bzip2' data streams
concatenated end-to-end.

   For reading files, `BZ2_bzReadOpen', `BZ2_bzRead', `BZ2_bzReadClose'
and `BZ2_bzReadGetUnused' are supplied. For writing files,
`BZ2_bzWriteOpen', `BZ2_bzWrite' and `BZ2_bzWriteFinish' are available.

   As with the low-level library, no global variables are used so the
library is per se thread-safe. However, if I/O errors occur whilst
reading or writing the underlying compressed files, you may have to
consult `errno' to determine the cause of the error. In that case,
you'd need a C library which correctly supports `errno' in a
multithreaded environment.

   To make the library a little simpler and more portable,
`BZ2_bzReadOpen' and `BZ2_bzWriteOpen' require you to pass them file
handles (`FILE*'s) which have previously been opened for reading or
writing respectively. That avoids portability problems associated with
file operations and file attributes, whilst not being much of an
imposition on the programmer.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Utility functions summary,  Prev: High-level summary,  Up: Top-level structure

3.1.3 Utility functions summary
-------------------------------

For very simple needs, `BZ2_bzBuffToBuffCompress' and
`BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress' are provided. These compress data in
memory from one buffer to another buffer in a single function call. You
should assess whether these functions fulfill your memory-to-memory
compression/decompression requirements before investing effort in
understanding the more general but more complex low-level interface.

   Yoshioka Tsuneo (`QWF00133@niftyserve.or.jp' /
`tsuneo-y@is.aist-nara.ac.jp') has contributed some functions to give
better `zlib' compatibility. These functions are `BZ2_bzopen',
`BZ2_bzread', `BZ2_bzwrite', `BZ2_bzflush', `BZ2_bzclose',
`BZ2_bzerror' and `BZ2_bzlibVersion'. You may find these functions more
convenient for simple file reading and writing, than those in the
high-level interface. These functions are not (yet) officially part of
the library, and are minimally documented here. If they break, you get
to keep all the pieces.  I hope to document them properly when time
permits.

   Yoshioka also contributed modifications to allow the library to be
built as a Windows DLL.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Error handling,  Next: >Low-level interface,  Prev: Top-level structure,  Up: Programming with libbzip2

3.2 Error handling
==================

The library is designed to recover cleanly in all situations, including
the worst-case situation of decompressing random data. I'm not 100%
sure that it can always do this, so you might want to add a signal
handler to catch segmentation violations during decompression if you
are feeling especially paranoid. I would be interested in hearing more
about the robustness of the library to corrupted compressed data.

   Version 1.0.3 more robust in this respect than any previous version.
Investigations with Valgrind (a tool for detecting problems with memory
management) indicate that, at least for the few files I tested, all
single-bit errors in the decompressed data are caught properly, with no
segmentation faults, no uses of uninitialised data, no out of range
reads or writes, and no infinite looping in the decompressor.  So it's
certainly pretty robust, although I wouldn't claim it to be totally
bombproof.

   The file `bzlib.h' contains all definitions needed to use the
library. In particular, you should definitely not include
`bzlib_private.h'.

   In `bzlib.h', the various return values are defined. The following
list is not intended as an exhaustive description of the circumstances
in which a given value may be returned - those descriptions are given
later.  Rather, it is intended to convey the rough meaning of each
return value. The first five actions are normal and not intended to
denote an error situation.

`BZ_OK'
     The requested action was completed successfully.

`BZ_RUN_OK, BZ_FLUSH_OK,  BZ_FINISH_OK'
     In `BZ2_bzCompress', the requested flush/finish/nothing-special
     action was completed successfully.

`BZ_STREAM_END'
     Compression of data was completed, or the logical stream end was
     detected during decompression.

   The following return values indicate an error of some kind.

`BZ_CONFIG_ERROR'
     Indicates that the library has been improperly compiled on your
     platform - a major configuration error.  Specifically, it means
     that `sizeof(char)', `sizeof(short)' and `sizeof(int)' are not 1,
     2 and 4 respectively, as they should be. Note that the library
     should still work properly on 64-bit platforms which follow the
     LP64 programming model - that is, where `sizeof(long)' and
     `sizeof(void*)' are 8. Under LP64, `sizeof(int)' is still 4, so
     `libbzip2', which doesn't use the `long' type, is OK.

`BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR'
     When using the library, it is important to call the functions in
     the correct sequence and with data structures (buffers etc) in the
     correct states.  `libbzip2' checks as much as it can to ensure
     this is happening, and returns `BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR' if not.  Code
     which complies precisely with the function semantics, as detailed
     below, should never receive this value; such an event denotes
     buggy code which you should investigate.

`BZ_PARAM_ERROR'
     Returned when a parameter to a function call is out of range or
     otherwise manifestly incorrect. As with `BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR', this
     denotes a bug in the client code. The distinction between
     `BZ_PARAM_ERROR' and `BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR' is a bit hazy, but still
     worth making.

`BZ_MEM_ERROR'
     Returned when a request to allocate memory failed. Note that the
     quantity of memory needed to decompress a stream cannot be
     determined until the stream's header has been read. So
     `BZ2_bzDecompress' and `BZ2_bzRead' may return `BZ_MEM_ERROR' even
     though some of the compressed data has been read. The same is not
     true for compression; once `BZ2_bzCompressInit' or
     `BZ2_bzWriteOpen' have successfully completed, `BZ_MEM_ERROR'
     cannot occur.

`BZ_DATA_ERROR'
     Returned when a data integrity error is detected during
     decompression. Most importantly, this means when stored and
     computed CRCs for the data do not match. This value is also
     returned upon detection of any other anomaly in the compressed
     data.

`BZ_DATA_ERROR_MAGIC'
     As a special case of `BZ_DATA_ERROR', it is sometimes useful to
     know when the compressed stream does not start with the correct
     magic bytes (`'B' 'Z' 'h'').

`BZ_IO_ERROR'
     Returned by `BZ2_bzRead' and `BZ2_bzWrite' when there is an error
     reading or writing in the compressed file, and by `BZ2_bzReadOpen'
     and `BZ2_bzWriteOpen' for attempts to use a file for which the
     error indicator (viz, `ferror(f)') is set. On receipt of
     `BZ_IO_ERROR', the caller should consult `errno' and/or `perror'
     to acquire operating-system specific information about the problem.

`BZ_UNEXPECTED_EOF'
     Returned by `BZ2_bzRead' when the compressed file finishes before
     the logical end of stream is detected.

`BZ_OUTBUFF_FULL'
     Returned by `BZ2_bzBuffToBuffCompress' and
     `BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress' to indicate that the output data will
     not fit into the output buffer provided.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: >Low-level interface,  Next: High-level interface,  Prev: Error handling,  Up: Programming with libbzip2

3.3 Low-level interface
=======================

* Menu:

* BZ2_bzCompressInit::
* BZ2_bzCompress::
* BZ2_bzCompressEnd::
* BZ2_bzDecompressInit::
* BZ2_bzDecompress::
* BZ2_bzDecompressEnd::


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzCompressInit,  Next: BZ2_bzCompress,  Up: >Low-level interface

3.3.1 BZ2_bzCompressInit
------------------------


     typedef struct {
       char *next_in;
       unsigned int avail_in;
       unsigned int total_in_lo32;
       unsigned int total_in_hi32;

       char *next_out;
       unsigned int avail_out;
       unsigned int total_out_lo32;
       unsigned int total_out_hi32;

       void *state;

       void *(*bzalloc)(void *,int,int);
       void (*bzfree)(void *,void *);
       void *opaque;
     } bz_stream;

     int BZ2_bzCompressInit ( bz_stream *strm,
                              int blockSize100k,
                              int verbosity,
                              int workFactor );

   Prepares for compression. The `bz_stream' structure holds all data
pertaining to the compression activity. A `bz_stream' structure should
be allocated and initialised prior to the call. The fields of
`bz_stream' comprise the entirety of the user-visible data. `state' is
a pointer to the private data structures required for compression.

   Custom memory allocators are supported, via fields `bzalloc',
`bzfree', and `opaque'. The value `opaque' is passed to as the first
argument to all calls to `bzalloc' and `bzfree', but is otherwise
ignored by the library. The call `bzalloc ( opaque, n, m )' is expected
to return a pointer `p' to `n * m' bytes of memory, and `bzfree (
opaque, p )' should free that memory.

   If you don't want to use a custom memory allocator, set `bzalloc',
`bzfree' and `opaque' to `NULL', and the library will then use the
standard `malloc' / `free' routines.

   Before calling `BZ2_bzCompressInit', fields `bzalloc', `bzfree' and
`opaque' should be filled appropriately, as just described. Upon
return, the internal state will have been allocated and initialised, and
`total_in_lo32', `total_in_hi32', `total_out_lo32' and `total_out_hi32'
will have been set to zero. These four fields are used by the library
to inform the caller of the total amount of data passed into and out of
the library, respectively. You should not try to change them. As of
version 1.0, 64-bit counts are maintained, even on 32-bit platforms,
using the `_hi32' fields to store the upper 32 bits of the count. So,
for example, the total amount of data in is `(total_in_hi32 << 32) +
total_in_lo32'.

   Parameter `blockSize100k' specifies the block size to be used for
compression. It should be a value between 1 and 9 inclusive, and the
actual block size used is 100000 x this figure. 9 gives the best
compression but takes most memory.

   Parameter `verbosity' should be set to a number between 0 and 4
inclusive. 0 is silent, and greater numbers give increasingly verbose
monitoring/debugging output. If the library has been compiled with
`-DBZ_NO_STDIO', no such output will appear for any verbosity setting.

   Parameter `workFactor' controls how the compression phase behaves
when presented with worst case, highly repetitive, input data. If
compression runs into difficulties caused by repetitive data, the
library switches from the standard sorting algorithm to a fallback
algorithm. The fallback is slower than the standard algorithm by
perhaps a factor of three, but always behaves reasonably, no matter how
bad the input.

   Lower values of `workFactor' reduce the amount of effort the
standard algorithm will expend before resorting to the fallback. You
should set this parameter carefully; too low, and many inputs will be
handled by the fallback algorithm and so compress rather slowly, too
high, and your average-to-worst case compression times can become very
large. The default value of 30 gives reasonable behaviour over a wide
range of circumstances.

   Allowable values range from 0 to 250 inclusive. 0 is a special case,
equivalent to using the default value of 30.

   Note that the compressed output generated is the same regardless of
whether or not the fallback algorithm is used.

   Be aware also that this parameter may disappear entirely in future
versions of the library. In principle it should be possible to devise a
good way to automatically choose which algorithm to use. Such a
mechanism would render the parameter obsolete.

   Possible return values:


     BZ_CONFIG_ERROR
       if the library has been mis-compiled
     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if strm is NULL
       or blockSize < 1 or blockSize > 9
       or verbosity < 0 or verbosity > 4
       or workFactor < 0 or workFactor > 250
     BZ_MEM_ERROR
       if not enough memory is available
     BZ_OK
       otherwise

   Allowable next actions:


     BZ2_bzCompress
       if BZ_OK is returned
       no specific action needed in case of error


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzCompress,  Next: BZ2_bzCompressEnd,  Prev: BZ2_bzCompressInit,  Up: >Low-level interface

3.3.2 BZ2_bzCompress
--------------------


     int BZ2_bzCompress ( bz_stream *strm, int action );

   Provides more input and/or output buffer space for the library. The
caller maintains input and output buffers, and calls `BZ2_bzCompress'
to transfer data between them.

   Before each call to `BZ2_bzCompress', `next_in' should point at the
data to be compressed, and `avail_in' should indicate how many bytes
the library may read.  `BZ2_bzCompress' updates `next_in', `avail_in'
and `total_in' to reflect the number of bytes it has read.

   Similarly, `next_out' should point to a buffer in which the
compressed data is to be placed, with `avail_out' indicating how much
output space is available.  `BZ2_bzCompress' updates `next_out',
`avail_out' and `total_out' to reflect the number of bytes output.

   You may provide and remove as little or as much data as you like on
each call of `BZ2_bzCompress'. In the limit, it is acceptable to supply
and remove data one byte at a time, although this would be terribly
inefficient. You should always ensure that at least one byte of output
space is available at each call.

   A second purpose of `BZ2_bzCompress' is to request a change of mode
of the compressed stream.

   Conceptually, a compressed stream can be in one of four states:
IDLE, RUNNING, FLUSHING and FINISHING. Before initialisation
(`BZ2_bzCompressInit') and after termination (`BZ2_bzCompressEnd'), a
stream is regarded as IDLE.

   Upon initialisation (`BZ2_bzCompressInit'), the stream is placed in
the RUNNING state. Subsequent calls to `BZ2_bzCompress' should pass
`BZ_RUN' as the requested action; other actions are illegal and will
result in `BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR'.

   At some point, the calling program will have provided all the input
data it wants to. It will then want to finish up - in effect, asking
the library to process any data it might have buffered internally. In
this state, `BZ2_bzCompress' will no longer attempt to read data from
`next_in', but it will want to write data to `next_out'. Because the
output buffer supplied by the user can be arbitrarily small, the
finishing-up operation cannot necessarily be done with a single call of
`BZ2_bzCompress'.

   Instead, the calling program passes `BZ_FINISH' as an action to
`BZ2_bzCompress'. This changes the stream's state to FINISHING. Any
remaining input (ie, `next_in[0 .. avail_in-1]') is compressed and
transferred to the output buffer. To do this, `BZ2_bzCompress' must be
called repeatedly until all the output has been consumed. At that
point, `BZ2_bzCompress' returns `BZ_STREAM_END', and the stream's state
is set back to IDLE.  `BZ2_bzCompressEnd' should then be called.

   Just to make sure the calling program does not cheat, the library
makes a note of `avail_in' at the time of the first call to
`BZ2_bzCompress' which has `BZ_FINISH' as an action (ie, at the time
the program has announced its intention to not supply any more input).
By comparing this value with that of `avail_in' over subsequent calls
to `BZ2_bzCompress', the library can detect any attempts to slip in
more data to compress. Any calls for which this is detected will return
`BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR'. This indicates a programming mistake which should
be corrected.

   Instead of asking to finish, the calling program may ask
`BZ2_bzCompress' to take all the remaining input, compress it and
terminate the current (Burrows-Wheeler) compression block. This could
be useful for error control purposes. The mechanism is analogous to
that for finishing: call `BZ2_bzCompress' with an action of `BZ_FLUSH',
remove output data, and persist with the `BZ_FLUSH' action until the
value `BZ_RUN' is returned. As with finishing, `BZ2_bzCompress' detects
any attempt to provide more input data once the flush has begun.

   Once the flush is complete, the stream returns to the normal RUNNING
state.

   This all sounds pretty complex, but isn't really. Here's a table
which shows which actions are allowable in each state, what action will
be taken, what the next state is, and what the non-error return values
are. Note that you can't explicitly ask what state the stream is in,
but nor do you need to - it can be inferred from the values returned by
`BZ2_bzCompress'.


     IDLE/any
       Illegal.  IDLE state only exists after BZ2_bzCompressEnd or
       before BZ2_bzCompressInit.
       Return value = BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR

     RUNNING/BZ_RUN
       Compress from next_in to next_out as much as possible.
       Next state = RUNNING
       Return value = BZ_RUN_OK

     RUNNING/BZ_FLUSH
       Remember current value of next_in. Compress from next_in
       to next_out as much as possible, but do not accept any more input.
       Next state = FLUSHING
       Return value = BZ_FLUSH_OK

     RUNNING/BZ_FINISH
       Remember current value of next_in. Compress from next_in
       to next_out as much as possible, but do not accept any more input.
       Next state = FINISHING
       Return value = BZ_FINISH_OK

     FLUSHING/BZ_FLUSH
       Compress from next_in to next_out as much as possible,
       but do not accept any more input.
       If all the existing input has been used up and all compressed
       output has been removed
         Next state = RUNNING; Return value = BZ_RUN_OK
       else
         Next state = FLUSHING; Return value = BZ_FLUSH_OK

     FLUSHING/other
       Illegal.
       Return value = BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR

     FINISHING/BZ_FINISH
       Compress from next_in to next_out as much as possible,
       but to not accept any more input.
       If all the existing input has been used up and all compressed
       output has been removed
         Next state = IDLE; Return value = BZ_STREAM_END
       else
         Next state = FINISHING; Return value = BZ_FINISHING

     FINISHING/other
       Illegal.
       Return value = BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR

   That still looks complicated? Well, fair enough. The usual sequence
of calls for compressing a load of data is:

  1. Get started with `BZ2_bzCompressInit'.

  2. Shovel data in and shlurp out its compressed form using zero or
     more calls of `BZ2_bzCompress' with action = `BZ_RUN'.

  3. Finish up. Repeatedly call `BZ2_bzCompress' with action =
     `BZ_FINISH', copying out the compressed output, until
     `BZ_STREAM_END' is returned.

  4. Close up and go home. Call `BZ2_bzCompressEnd'.

   If the data you want to compress fits into your input buffer all at
once, you can skip the calls of `BZ2_bzCompress ( ..., BZ_RUN )' and
just do the `BZ2_bzCompress ( ..., BZ_FINISH )' calls.

   All required memory is allocated by `BZ2_bzCompressInit'. The
compression library can accept any data at all (obviously). So you
shouldn't get any error return values from the `BZ2_bzCompress' calls.
If you do, they will be `BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR', and indicate a bug in your
programming.

   Trivial other possible return values:


     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if strm is NULL, or strm->s is NULL


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzCompressEnd,  Next: BZ2_bzDecompressInit,  Prev: BZ2_bzCompress,  Up: >Low-level interface

3.3.3 BZ2_bzCompressEnd
-----------------------


     int BZ2_bzCompressEnd ( bz_stream *strm );

   Releases all memory associated with a compression stream.

   Possible return values:


     BZ_PARAM_ERROR  if strm is NULL or strm->s is NULL
     BZ_OK           otherwise


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzDecompressInit,  Next: BZ2_bzDecompress,  Prev: BZ2_bzCompressEnd,  Up: >Low-level interface

3.3.4 BZ2_bzDecompressInit
--------------------------


     int BZ2_bzDecompressInit ( bz_stream *strm, int verbosity, int small );

   Prepares for decompression. As with `BZ2_bzCompressInit', a
`bz_stream' record should be allocated and initialised before the call.
Fields `bzalloc', `bzfree' and `opaque' should be set if a custom
memory allocator is required, or made `NULL' for the normal `malloc' /
`free' routines. Upon return, the internal state will have been
initialised, and `total_in' and `total_out' will be zero.

   For the meaning of parameter `verbosity', see `BZ2_bzCompressInit'.

   If `small' is nonzero, the library will use an alternative
decompression algorithm which uses less memory but at the cost of
decompressing more slowly (roughly speaking, half the speed, but the
maximum memory requirement drops to around 2300k). See *note How to use
bzip2: How to use bzip2.  for more information on memory management.

   Note that the amount of memory needed to decompress a stream cannot
be determined until the stream's header has been read, so even if
`BZ2_bzDecompressInit' succeeds, a subsequent `BZ2_bzDecompress' could
fail with `BZ_MEM_ERROR'.

   Possible return values:


     BZ_CONFIG_ERROR
       if the library has been mis-compiled
     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if ( small != 0 && small != 1 )
       or (verbosity < 0 || verbosity > 4)
     BZ_MEM_ERROR
       if insufficient memory is available

   Allowable next actions:


     BZ2_bzDecompress
       if BZ_OK was returned
       no specific action required in case of error


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzDecompress,  Next: BZ2_bzDecompressEnd,  Prev: BZ2_bzDecompressInit,  Up: >Low-level interface

3.3.5 BZ2_bzDecompress
----------------------


     int BZ2_bzDecompress ( bz_stream *strm );

   Provides more input and/out output buffer space for the library. The
caller maintains input and output buffers, and uses `BZ2_bzDecompress'
to transfer data between them.

   Before each call to `BZ2_bzDecompress', `next_in' should point at the
compressed data, and `avail_in' should indicate how many bytes the
library may read.  `BZ2_bzDecompress' updates `next_in', `avail_in' and
`total_in' to reflect the number of bytes it has read.

   Similarly, `next_out' should point to a buffer in which the
uncompressed output is to be placed, with `avail_out' indicating how
much output space is available.  `BZ2_bzCompress' updates `next_out',
`avail_out' and `total_out' to reflect the number of bytes output.

   You may provide and remove as little or as much data as you like on
each call of `BZ2_bzDecompress'. In the limit, it is acceptable to
supply and remove data one byte at a time, although this would be
terribly inefficient. You should always ensure that at least one byte
of output space is available at each call.

   Use of `BZ2_bzDecompress' is simpler than `BZ2_bzCompress'.

   You should provide input and remove output as described above, and
repeatedly call `BZ2_bzDecompress' until `BZ_STREAM_END' is returned.
Appearance of `BZ_STREAM_END' denotes that `BZ2_bzDecompress' has
detected the logical end of the compressed stream.  `BZ2_bzDecompress'
will not produce `BZ_STREAM_END' until all output data has been placed
into the output buffer, so once `BZ_STREAM_END' appears, you are
guaranteed to have available all the decompressed output, and
`BZ2_bzDecompressEnd' can safely be called.

   If case of an error return value, you should call
`BZ2_bzDecompressEnd' to clean up and release memory.

   Possible return values:


     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if strm is NULL or strm->s is NULL
       or strm->avail_out < 1
     BZ_DATA_ERROR
       if a data integrity error is detected in the compressed stream
     BZ_DATA_ERROR_MAGIC
       if the compressed stream doesn't begin with the right magic bytes
     BZ_MEM_ERROR
       if there wasn't enough memory available
     BZ_STREAM_END
       if the logical end of the data stream was detected and all
       output in has been consumed, eg s-->avail_out > 0
     BZ_OK
       otherwise

   Allowable next actions:


     BZ2_bzDecompress
       if BZ_OK was returned
     BZ2_bzDecompressEnd
       otherwise


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzDecompressEnd,  Prev: BZ2_bzDecompress,  Up: >Low-level interface

3.3.6 BZ2_bzDecompressEnd
-------------------------


     int BZ2_bzDecompressEnd ( bz_stream *strm );

   Releases all memory associated with a decompression stream.

   Possible return values:


     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if strm is NULL or strm->s is NULL
     BZ_OK
       otherwise

   Allowable next actions:


       None.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: High-level interface,  Next: Utility functions,  Prev: >Low-level interface,  Up: Programming with libbzip2

3.4 High-level interface
========================

This interface provides functions for reading and writing `bzip2'
format files. First, some general points.

   * All of the functions take an `int*' first argument, `bzerror'.
     After each call, `bzerror' should be consulted first to determine
     the outcome of the call. If `bzerror' is `BZ_OK', the call
     completed successfully, and only then should the return value of
     the function (if any) be consulted. If `bzerror' is `BZ_IO_ERROR',
     there was an error reading/writing the underlying compressed file,
     and you should then consult `errno' / `perror' to determine the
     cause of the difficulty. `bzerror' may also be set to various
     other values; precise details are given on a per-function basis
     below.

   * If `bzerror' indicates an error (ie, anything except `BZ_OK' and
     `BZ_STREAM_END'), you should immediately call `BZ2_bzReadClose' (or
     `BZ2_bzWriteClose', depending on whether you are attempting to
     read or to write) to free up all resources associated with the
     stream. Once an error has been indicated, behaviour of all calls
     except `BZ2_bzReadClose' (`BZ2_bzWriteClose') is undefined. The
     implication is that (1) `bzerror' should be checked after each
     call, and (2) if `bzerror' indicates an error, `BZ2_bzReadClose'
     (`BZ2_bzWriteClose') should then be called to clean up.

   * The `FILE*' arguments passed to `BZ2_bzReadOpen' /
     `BZ2_bzWriteOpen' should be set to binary mode. Most Unix systems
     will do this by default, but other platforms, including Windows
     and Mac, will not. If you omit this, you may encounter problems
     when moving code to new platforms.

   * Memory allocation requests are handled by `malloc' / `free'. At
     present there is no facility for user-defined memory allocators in
     the file I/O functions (could easily be added, though).

* Menu:

* BZ2_bzReadOpen::
* BZ2_bzRead::
* BZ2_bzReadGetUnused::
* BZ2_bzReadClose::
* BZ2_bzWriteOpen::
* BZ2_bzWrite::
* BZ2_bzWriteClose::
* Handling embedded compressed data streams::
* Standard file-reading/writing code::


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzReadOpen,  Next: BZ2_bzRead,  Up: High-level interface

3.4.1 BZ2_bzReadOpen
--------------------


     typedef void BZFILE;

     BZFILE *BZ2_bzReadOpen( int *bzerror, FILE *f,
                             int verbosity, int small,
                             void *unused, int nUnused );

   Prepare to read compressed data from file handle `f'.  `f' should
refer to a file which has been opened for reading, and for which the
error indicator (`ferror(f)')is not set. If `small' is 1, the library
will try to decompress using less memory, at the expense of speed.

   For reasons explained below, `BZ2_bzRead' will decompress the
`nUnused' bytes starting at `unused', before starting to read from the
file `f'. At most `BZ_MAX_UNUSED' bytes may be supplied like this. If
this facility is not required, you should pass `NULL' and `0' for
`unused' and n`Unused' respectively.

   For the meaning of parameters `small' and `verbosity', see
`BZ2_bzDecompressInit'.

   The amount of memory needed to decompress a file cannot be
determined until the file's header has been read. So it is possible
that `BZ2_bzReadOpen' returns `BZ_OK' but a subsequent call of
`BZ2_bzRead' will return `BZ_MEM_ERROR'.

   Possible assignments to `bzerror':


     BZ_CONFIG_ERROR
       if the library has been mis-compiled
     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if f is NULL
       or small is neither 0 nor 1
       or ( unused == NULL && nUnused != 0 )
       or ( unused != NULL && !(0 <= nUnused <= BZ_MAX_UNUSED) )
     BZ_IO_ERROR
       if ferror(f) is nonzero
     BZ_MEM_ERROR
       if insufficient memory is available
     BZ_OK
       otherwise.

   Possible return values:


     Pointer to an abstract BZFILE
       if bzerror is BZ_OK
     NULL
       otherwise

   Allowable next actions:


     BZ2_bzRead
       if bzerror is BZ_OK
     BZ2_bzClose
       otherwise


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzRead,  Next: BZ2_bzReadGetUnused,  Prev: BZ2_bzReadOpen,  Up: High-level interface

3.4.2 BZ2_bzRead
----------------


     int BZ2_bzRead ( int *bzerror, BZFILE *b, void *buf, int len );

   Reads up to `len' (uncompressed) bytes from the compressed file `b'
into the buffer `buf'. If the read was successful, `bzerror' is set to
`BZ_OK' and the number of bytes read is returned. If the logical
end-of-stream was detected, `bzerror' will be set to `BZ_STREAM_END',
and the number of bytes read is returned. All other `bzerror' values
denote an error.

   `BZ2_bzRead' will supply `len' bytes, unless the logical stream end
is detected or an error occurs. Because of this, it is possible to
detect the stream end by observing when the number of bytes returned is
less than the number requested.  Nevertheless, this is regarded as
inadvisable; you should instead check `bzerror' after every call and
watch out for `BZ_STREAM_END'.

   Internally, `BZ2_bzRead' copies data from the compressed file in
chunks of size `BZ_MAX_UNUSED' bytes before decompressing it. If the
file contains more bytes than strictly needed to reach the logical
end-of-stream, `BZ2_bzRead' will almost certainly read some of the
trailing data before signalling `BZ_SEQUENCE_END'. To collect the read
but unused data once `BZ_SEQUENCE_END' has appeared, call
`BZ2_bzReadGetUnused' immediately before `BZ2_bzReadClose'.

   Possible assignments to `bzerror':


     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if b is NULL or buf is NULL or len < 0
     BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR
       if b was opened with BZ2_bzWriteOpen
     BZ_IO_ERROR
       if there is an error reading from the compressed file
     BZ_UNEXPECTED_EOF
       if the compressed file ended before
       the logical end-of-stream was detected
     BZ_DATA_ERROR
       if a data integrity error was detected in the compressed stream
     BZ_DATA_ERROR_MAGIC
       if the stream does not begin with the requisite header bytes
       (ie, is not a bzip2 data file).  This is really
       a special case of BZ_DATA_ERROR.
     BZ_MEM_ERROR
       if insufficient memory was available
     BZ_STREAM_END
       if the logical end of stream was detected.
     BZ_OK
       otherwise.

   Possible return values:


     number of bytes read
       if bzerror is BZ_OK or BZ_STREAM_END
     undefined
       otherwise

   Allowable next actions:


     collect data from buf, then BZ2_bzRead or BZ2_bzReadClose
       if bzerror is BZ_OK
     collect data from buf, then BZ2_bzReadClose or BZ2_bzReadGetUnused
       if bzerror is BZ_SEQUENCE_END
     BZ2_bzReadClose
       otherwise


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzReadGetUnused,  Next: BZ2_bzReadClose,  Prev: BZ2_bzRead,  Up: High-level interface

3.4.3 BZ2_bzReadGetUnused
-------------------------


     void BZ2_bzReadGetUnused( int* bzerror, BZFILE *b,
                               void** unused, int* nUnused );

   Returns data which was read from the compressed file but was not
needed to get to the logical end-of-stream.  `*unused' is set to the
address of the data, and `*nUnused' to the number of bytes. `*nUnused'
will be set to a value between `0' and `BZ_MAX_UNUSED' inclusive.

   This function may only be called once `BZ2_bzRead' has signalled
`BZ_STREAM_END' but before `BZ2_bzReadClose'.

   Possible assignments to `bzerror':


     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if b is NULL
       or unused is NULL or nUnused is NULL
     BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR
       if BZ_STREAM_END has not been signalled
       or if b was opened with BZ2_bzWriteOpen
     BZ_OK
       otherwise

   Allowable next actions:


     BZ2_bzReadClose


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzReadClose,  Next: BZ2_bzWriteOpen,  Prev: BZ2_bzReadGetUnused,  Up: High-level interface

3.4.4 BZ2_bzReadClose
---------------------


     void BZ2_bzReadClose ( int *bzerror, BZFILE *b );

   Releases all memory pertaining to the compressed file `b'.
`BZ2_bzReadClose' does not call `fclose' on the underlying file handle,
so you should do that yourself if appropriate.  `BZ2_bzReadClose'
should be called to clean up after all error situations.

   Possible assignments to `bzerror':


     BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR
       if b was opened with BZ2_bzOpenWrite
     BZ_OK
       otherwise

   Allowable next actions:


     none


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzWriteOpen,  Next: BZ2_bzWrite,  Prev: BZ2_bzReadClose,  Up: High-level interface

3.4.5 BZ2_bzWriteOpen
---------------------


     BZFILE *BZ2_bzWriteOpen( int *bzerror, FILE *f,
                              int blockSize100k, int verbosity,
                              int workFactor );

   Prepare to write compressed data to file handle `f'.  `f' should
refer to a file which has been opened for writing, and for which the
error indicator (`ferror(f)')is not set.

   For the meaning of parameters `blockSize100k', `verbosity' and
`workFactor', see `BZ2_bzCompressInit'.

   All required memory is allocated at this stage, so if the call
completes successfully, `BZ_MEM_ERROR' cannot be signalled by a
subsequent call to `BZ2_bzWrite'.

   Possible assignments to `bzerror':


     BZ_CONFIG_ERROR
       if the library has been mis-compiled
     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if f is NULL
       or blockSize100k < 1 or blockSize100k > 9
     BZ_IO_ERROR
       if ferror(f) is nonzero
     BZ_MEM_ERROR
       if insufficient memory is available
     BZ_OK
       otherwise

   Possible return values:


     Pointer to an abstract BZFILE
       if bzerror is BZ_OK
     NULL
       otherwise

   Allowable next actions:


     BZ2_bzWrite
       if bzerror is BZ_OK
       (you could go directly to BZ2_bzWriteClose, but this would be pretty pointless)
     BZ2_bzWriteClose
       otherwise


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzWrite,  Next: BZ2_bzWriteClose,  Prev: BZ2_bzWriteOpen,  Up: High-level interface

3.4.6 BZ2_bzWrite
-----------------


     void BZ2_bzWrite ( int *bzerror, BZFILE *b, void *buf, int len );

   Absorbs `len' bytes from the buffer `buf', eventually to be
compressed and written to the file.

   Possible assignments to `bzerror':


     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if b is NULL or buf is NULL or len < 0
     BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR
       if b was opened with BZ2_bzReadOpen
     BZ_IO_ERROR
       if there is an error writing the compressed file.
     BZ_OK
       otherwise


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzWriteClose,  Next: Handling embedded compressed data streams,  Prev: BZ2_bzWrite,  Up: High-level interface

3.4.7 BZ2_bzWriteClose
----------------------


     void BZ2_bzWriteClose( int *bzerror, BZFILE* f,
                            int abandon,
                            unsigned int* nbytes_in,
                            unsigned int* nbytes_out );

     void BZ2_bzWriteClose64( int *bzerror, BZFILE* f,
                              int abandon,
                              unsigned int* nbytes_in_lo32,
                              unsigned int* nbytes_in_hi32,
                              unsigned int* nbytes_out_lo32,
                              unsigned int* nbytes_out_hi32 );

   Compresses and flushes to the compressed file all data so far
supplied by `BZ2_bzWrite'.  The logical end-of-stream markers are also
written, so subsequent calls to `BZ2_bzWrite' are illegal. All memory
associated with the compressed file `b' is released.  `fflush' is
called on the compressed file, but it is not `fclose''d.

   If `BZ2_bzWriteClose' is called to clean up after an error, the only
action is to release the memory. The library records the error codes
issued by previous calls, so this situation will be detected
automatically.  There is no attempt to complete the compression
operation, nor to `fflush' the compressed file. You can force this
behaviour to happen even in the case of no error, by passing a nonzero
value to `abandon'.

   If `nbytes_in' is non-null, `*nbytes_in' will be set to be the total
volume of uncompressed data handled. Similarly, `nbytes_out' will be
set to the total volume of compressed data written. For compatibility
with older versions of the library, `BZ2_bzWriteClose' only yields the
lower 32 bits of these counts. Use `BZ2_bzWriteClose64' if you want the
full 64 bit counts. These two functions are otherwise absolutely
identical.

   Possible assignments to `bzerror':


     BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR
       if b was opened with BZ2_bzReadOpen
     BZ_IO_ERROR
       if there is an error writing the compressed file
     BZ_OK
       otherwise


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Handling embedded compressed data streams,  Next: Standard file-reading/writing code,  Prev: BZ2_bzWriteClose,  Up: High-level interface

3.4.8 Handling embedded compressed data streams
-----------------------------------------------

The high-level library facilitates use of `bzip2' data streams which
form some part of a surrounding, larger data stream.

   * For writing, the library takes an open file handle, writes
     compressed data to it, `fflush'es it but does not `fclose' it. The
     calling application can write its own data before and after the
     compressed data stream, using that same file handle.

   * Reading is more complex, and the facilities are not as general as
     they could be since generality is hard to reconcile with
     efficiency. `BZ2_bzRead' reads from the compressed file in blocks
     of size `BZ_MAX_UNUSED' bytes, and in doing so probably will
     overshoot the logical end of compressed stream. To recover this
     data once decompression has ended, call `BZ2_bzReadGetUnused' after
     the last call of `BZ2_bzRead' (the one returning `BZ_STREAM_END')
     but before calling `BZ2_bzReadClose'.

   This mechanism makes it easy to decompress multiple `bzip2' streams
placed end-to-end.  As the end of one stream, when `BZ2_bzRead' returns
`BZ_STREAM_END', call `BZ2_bzReadGetUnused' to collect the unused data
(copy it into your own buffer somewhere). That data forms the start of
the next compressed stream. To start uncompressing that next stream,
call `BZ2_bzReadOpen' again, feeding in the unused data via the
`unused' / `nUnused' parameters. Keep doing this until `BZ_STREAM_END'
return coincides with the physical end of file (`feof(f)'). In this
situation `BZ2_bzReadGetUnused' will of course return no data.

   This should give some feel for how the high-level interface can be
used. If you require extra flexibility, you'll have to bite the bullet
and get to grips with the low-level interface.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Standard file-reading/writing code,  Prev: Handling embedded compressed data streams,  Up: High-level interface

3.4.9 Standard file-reading/writing code
----------------------------------------

Here's how you'd write data to a compressed file:


     FILE*   f;
     BZFILE* b;
     int     nBuf;
     char    buf[ /* whatever size you like */ ];
     int     bzerror;
     int     nWritten;

     f = fopen ( "myfile.bz2", "w" );
     if ( !f ) {
      /* handle error */
     }
     b = BZ2_bzWriteOpen( &bzerror, f, 9 );
     if (bzerror != BZ_OK) {
      BZ2_bzWriteClose ( b );
      /* handle error */
     }

     while ( /* condition */ ) {
      /* get data to write into buf, and set nBuf appropriately */
      nWritten = BZ2_bzWrite ( &bzerror, b, buf, nBuf );
      if (bzerror == BZ_IO_ERROR) {
        BZ2_bzWriteClose ( &bzerror, b );
        /* handle error */
      }
     }

     BZ2_bzWriteClose( &bzerror, b );
     if (bzerror == BZ_IO_ERROR) {
      /* handle error */
     }

   And to read from a compressed file:


     FILE*   f;
     BZFILE* b;
     int     nBuf;
     char    buf[ /* whatever size you like */ ];
     int     bzerror;
     int     nWritten;

     f = fopen ( "myfile.bz2", "r" );
     if ( !f ) {
       /* handle error */
     }
     b = BZ2_bzReadOpen ( &bzerror, f, 0, NULL, 0 );
     if ( bzerror != BZ_OK ) {
       BZ2_bzReadClose ( &bzerror, b );
       /* handle error */
     }

     bzerror = BZ_OK;
     while ( bzerror == BZ_OK && /* arbitrary other conditions */) {
       nBuf = BZ2_bzRead ( &bzerror, b, buf, /* size of buf */ );
       if ( bzerror == BZ_OK ) {
         /* do something with buf[0 .. nBuf-1] */
       }
     }
     if ( bzerror != BZ_STREAM_END ) {
        BZ2_bzReadClose ( &bzerror, b );
        /* handle error */
     } else {
        BZ2_bzReadClose ( &bzerror );
     }


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Utility functions,  Next: zlib compatibility functions,  Prev: High-level interface,  Up: Programming with libbzip2

3.5 Utility functions
=====================

* Menu:

* BZ2_bzBuffToBuffCompress::
* BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress::


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzBuffToBuffCompress,  Next: BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress,  Up: Utility functions

3.5.1 BZ2_bzBuffToBuffCompress
------------------------------


     int BZ2_bzBuffToBuffCompress( char*         dest,
                                   unsigned int* destLen,
                                   char*         source,
                                   unsigned int  sourceLen,
                                   int           blockSize100k,
                                   int           verbosity,
                                   int           workFactor );

   Attempts to compress the data in `source[0 .. sourceLen-1]' into the
destination buffer, `dest[0 .. *destLen-1]'. If the destination buffer
is big enough, `*destLen' is set to the size of the compressed data,
and `BZ_OK' is returned. If the compressed data won't fit, `*destLen'
is unchanged, and `BZ_OUTBUFF_FULL' is returned.

   Compression in this manner is a one-shot event, done with a single
call to this function. The resulting compressed data is a complete
`bzip2' format data stream. There is no mechanism for making additional
calls to provide extra input data. If you want that kind of mechanism,
use the low-level interface.

   For the meaning of parameters `blockSize100k', `verbosity' and
`workFactor', see `BZ2_bzCompressInit'.

   To guarantee that the compressed data will fit in its buffer,
allocate an output buffer of size 1% larger than the uncompressed data,
plus six hundred extra bytes.

   `BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress' will not write data at or beyond
`dest[*destLen]', even in case of buffer overflow.

   Possible return values:


     BZ_CONFIG_ERROR
       if the library has been mis-compiled
     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if dest is NULL or destLen is NULL
       or blockSize100k < 1 or blockSize100k > 9
       or verbosity < 0 or verbosity > 4
       or workFactor < 0 or workFactor > 250
     BZ_MEM_ERROR
       if insufficient memory is available
     BZ_OUTBUFF_FULL
       if the size of the compressed data exceeds *destLen
     BZ_OK
       otherwise


File: bzip2.info,  Node: BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress,  Prev: BZ2_bzBuffToBuffCompress,  Up: Utility functions

3.5.2 BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress
--------------------------------


     int BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress( char*         dest,
                                     unsigned int* destLen,
                                     char*         source,
                                     unsigned int  sourceLen,
                                     int           small,
                                     int           verbosity );

   Attempts to decompress the data in `source[0 .. sourceLen-1]' into
the destination buffer, `dest[0 .. *destLen-1]'. If the destination
buffer is big enough, `*destLen' is set to the size of the uncompressed
data, and `BZ_OK' is returned. If the compressed data won't fit,
`*destLen' is unchanged, and `BZ_OUTBUFF_FULL' is returned.

   `source' is assumed to hold a complete `bzip2' format data stream.
`BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress' tries to decompress the entirety of the
stream into the output buffer.

   For the meaning of parameters `small' and `verbosity', see
`BZ2_bzDecompressInit'.

   Because the compression ratio of the compressed data cannot be known
in advance, there is no easy way to guarantee that the output buffer
will be big enough. You may of course make arrangements in your code to
record the size of the uncompressed data, but such a mechanism is
beyond the scope of this library.

   `BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress' will not write data at or beyond
`dest[*destLen]', even in case of buffer overflow.

   Possible return values:


     BZ_CONFIG_ERROR
       if the library has been mis-compiled
     BZ_PARAM_ERROR
       if dest is NULL or destLen is NULL
       or small != 0 && small != 1
       or verbosity < 0 or verbosity > 4
     BZ_MEM_ERROR
       if insufficient memory is available
     BZ_OUTBUFF_FULL
       if the size of the compressed data exceeds *destLen
     BZ_DATA_ERROR
       if a data integrity error was detected in the compressed data
     BZ_DATA_ERROR_MAGIC
       if the compressed data doesn't begin with the right magic bytes
     BZ_UNEXPECTED_EOF
       if the compressed data ends unexpectedly
     BZ_OK
       otherwise


File: bzip2.info,  Node: zlib compatibility functions,  Next: Using the library in a stdio-free environment,  Prev: Utility functions,  Up: Programming with libbzip2

3.6 zlib compatibility functions
================================

Yoshioka Tsuneo has contributed some functions to give better `zlib'
compatibility.  These functions are `BZ2_bzopen', `BZ2_bzread',
`BZ2_bzwrite', `BZ2_bzflush', `BZ2_bzclose', `BZ2_bzerror' and
`BZ2_bzlibVersion'. These functions are not (yet) officially part of
the library. If they break, you get to keep all the pieces.
Nevertheless, I think they work ok.


     typedef void BZFILE;

     const char * BZ2_bzlibVersion ( void );

   Returns a string indicating the library version.


     BZFILE * BZ2_bzopen  ( const char *path, const char *mode );
     BZFILE * BZ2_bzdopen ( int        fd,    const char *mode );

   Opens a `.bz2' file for reading or writing, using either its name or
a pre-existing file descriptor. Analogous to `fopen' and `fdopen'.


     int BZ2_bzread  ( BZFILE* b, void* buf, int len );
     int BZ2_bzwrite ( BZFILE* b, void* buf, int len );

   Reads/writes data from/to a previously opened `BZFILE'. Analogous to
`fread' and `fwrite'.


     int  BZ2_bzflush ( BZFILE* b );
     void BZ2_bzclose ( BZFILE* b );

   Flushes/closes a `BZFILE'.  `BZ2_bzflush' doesn't actually do
anything. Analogous to `fflush' and `fclose'.


     const char * BZ2_bzerror ( BZFILE *b, int *errnum )

   Returns a string describing the more recent error status of `b', and
also sets `*errnum' to its numerical value.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Using the library in a stdio-free environment,  Next: Making a Windows DLL,  Prev: zlib compatibility functions,  Up: Programming with libbzip2

3.7 Using the library in a stdio-free environment
=================================================

* Menu:

* Getting rid of stdio::
* Critical error handling::


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Getting rid of stdio,  Next: Critical error handling,  Up: Using the library in a stdio-free environment

3.7.1 Getting rid of stdio
--------------------------

In a deeply embedded application, you might want to use just the
memory-to-memory functions. You can do this conveniently by compiling
the library with preprocessor symbol `BZ_NO_STDIO' defined. Doing this
gives you a library containing only the following eight functions:

   `BZ2_bzCompressInit', `BZ2_bzCompress', `BZ2_bzCompressEnd'
`BZ2_bzDecompressInit', `BZ2_bzDecompress', `BZ2_bzDecompressEnd'
`BZ2_bzBuffToBuffCompress', `BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress'

   When compiled like this, all functions will ignore `verbosity'
settings.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Critical error handling,  Prev: Getting rid of stdio,  Up: Using the library in a stdio-free environment

3.7.2 Critical error handling
-----------------------------

`libbzip2' contains a number of internal assertion checks which should,
needless to say, never be activated. Nevertheless, if an assertion
should fail, behaviour depends on whether or not the library was
compiled with `BZ_NO_STDIO' set.

   For a normal compile, an assertion failure yields the message:

     bzip2/libbzip2: internal error number N.

     This is a bug in bzip2/libbzip2, 1.0.3 of 15 February 2005.
     Please report it to me at: jseward@bzip.org. If this happened when
     you were using some program which uses libbzip2 as a component,
     you should also report this bug to the author(s) of that program.
     Please make an effort to report this bug; timely and accurate bug
     reports eventually lead to higher quality software. Thanks. Julian
     Seward, 15 February 2005.

   where `N' is some error code number. If `N == 1007', it also prints
some extra text advising the reader that unreliable memory is often
associated with internal error 1007. (This is a
frequently-observed-phenomenon with versions 1.0.0/1.0.1).

   `exit(3)' is then called.

   For a `stdio'-free library, assertion failures result in a call to a
function declared as:


     extern void bz_internal_error ( int errcode );

   The relevant code is passed as a parameter. You should supply such a
function.

   In either case, once an assertion failure has occurred, any
`bz_stream' records involved can be regarded as invalid. You should not
attempt to resume normal operation with them.

   You may, of course, change critical error handling to suit your
needs. As I said above, critical errors indicate bugs in the library
and should not occur. All "normal" error situations are indicated via
error return codes from functions, and can be recovered from.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Making a Windows DLL,  Prev: Using the library in a stdio-free environment,  Up: Programming with libbzip2

3.8 Making a Windows DLL
========================

Everything related to Windows has been contributed by Yoshioka Tsuneo
(`QWF00133@niftyserve.or.jp' / `tsuneo-y@is.aist-nara.ac.jp'), so you
should send your queries to him (but perhaps Cc: me,
`jseward@bzip.org').

   My vague understanding of what to do is: using Visual C++ 5.0, open
the project file `libbz2.dsp', and build. That's all.

   If you can't open the project file for some reason, make a new one,
naming these files: `blocksort.c', `bzlib.c', `compress.c',
`crctable.c', `decompress.c', `huffman.c', `randtable.c' and
`libbz2.def'. You will also need to name the header files `bzlib.h' and
`bzlib_private.h'.

   If you don't use VC++, you may need to define the proprocessor symbol
`_WIN32'.

   Finally, `dlltest.c' is a sample program using the DLL. It has a
project file, `dlltest.dsp'.

   If you just want a makefile for Visual C, have a look at
`makefile.msc'.

   Be aware that if you compile `bzip2' itself on Win32, you must set
`BZ_UNIX' to 0 and `BZ_LCCWIN32' to 1, in the file `bzip2.c', before
compiling.  Otherwise the resulting binary won't work correctly.

   I haven't tried any of this stuff myself, but it all looks plausible.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Miscellanea,  Prev: Programming with libbzip2,  Up: Top

4 Miscellanea
*************

These are just some random thoughts of mine. Your mileage may vary.

* Menu:

* Limitations of the compressed file format::
* Portability issues::
* Reporting bugs::
* Did you get the right package?::
* Further Reading::


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Limitations of the compressed file format,  Next: Portability issues,  Up: Miscellanea

4.1 Limitations of the compressed file format
=============================================

`bzip2-1.0.X', `0.9.5' and `0.9.0' use exactly the same file format as
the original version, `bzip2-0.1'. This decision was made in the
interests of stability. Creating yet another incompatible compressed
file format would create further confusion and disruption for users.

   Nevertheless, this is not a painless decision. Development work
since the release of `bzip2-0.1' in August 1997 has shown complexities
in the file format which slow down decompression and, in retrospect,
are unnecessary. These are:

   * The run-length encoder, which is the first of the compression
     transformations, is entirely irrelevant. The original purpose was
     to protect the sorting algorithm from the very worst case input: a
     string of repeated symbols. But algorithm steps Q6a and Q6b in the
     original Burrows-Wheeler technical report (SRC-124) show how
     repeats can be handled without difficulty in block sorting.

   * The randomisation mechanism doesn't really need to be there. Udi
     Manber and Gene Myers published a suffix array construction
     algorithm a few years back, which can be employed to sort any
     block, no matter how repetitive, in O(N log N) time. Subsequent
     work by Kunihiko Sadakane has produced a derivative O(N (log N)^2)
     algorithm which usually outperforms the Manber-Myers algorithm.

     I could have changed to Sadakane's algorithm, but I find it to be
     slower than `bzip2''s existing algorithm for most inputs, and the
     randomisation mechanism protects adequately against bad cases. I
     didn't think it was a good tradeoff to make. Partly this is due to
     the fact that I was not flooded with email complaints about
     `bzip2-0.1''s performance on repetitive data, so perhaps it isn't
     a problem for real inputs.

     Probably the best long-term solution, and the one I have
     incorporated into 0.9.5 and above, is to use the existing sorting
     algorithm initially, and fall back to a O(N (log N)^2) algorithm
     if the standard algorithm gets into difficulties.

   * The compressed file format was never designed to be handled by a
     library, and I have had to jump though some hoops to produce an
     efficient implementation of decompression. It's a bit hairy. Try
     passing `decompress.c' through the C preprocessor and you'll see
     what I mean. Much of this complexity could have been avoided if
     the compressed size of each block of data was recorded in the data
     stream.

   * An Adler-32 checksum, rather than a CRC32 checksum, would be
     faster to compute.

   It would be fair to say that the `bzip2' format was frozen before I
properly and fully understood the performance consequences of doing so.

   Improvements which I was able to incorporate into 0.9.0, despite
using the same file format, are:

   * Single array implementation of the inverse BWT. This significantly
     speeds up decompression, presumably because it reduces the number
     of cache misses.

   * Faster inverse MTF transform for large MTF values.  The new
     implementation is based on the notion of sliding blocks of values.

   * `bzip2-0.9.0' now reads and writes files with `fread' and
     `fwrite'; version 0.1 used `putc' and `getc'. Duh! Well, you live
     and learn.

   Further ahead, it would be nice to be able to do random access into
files. This will require some careful design of compressed file formats.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Portability issues,  Next: Reporting bugs,  Prev: Limitations of the compressed file format,  Up: Miscellanea

4.2 Portability issues
======================

After some consideration, I have decided not to use GNU `autoconf' to
configure 0.9.5 or 1.0.

   `autoconf', admirable and wonderful though it is, mainly assists
with portability problems between Unix-like platforms. But `bzip2'
doesn't have much in the way of portability problems on Unix; most of
the difficulties appear when porting to the Mac, or to Microsoft's
operating systems. `autoconf' doesn't help in those cases, and brings
in a whole load of new complexity.

   Most people should be able to compile the library and program under
Unix straight out-of-the-box, so to speak, especially if you have a
version of GNU C available.

   There are a couple of `__inline__' directives in the code. GNU C
(`gcc') should be able to handle them. If you're not using GNU C, your
C compiler shouldn't see them at all. If your compiler does, for some
reason, see them and doesn't like them, just `#define' `__inline__' to
be `/* */'. One easy way to do this is to compile with the flag
`-D__inline__=', which should be understood by most Unix compilers.

   If you still have difficulties, try compiling with the macro
`BZ_STRICT_ANSI' defined.  This should enable you to build the library
in a strictly ANSI compliant environment. Building the program itself
like this is dangerous and not supported, since you remove `bzip2''s
checks against compressing directories, symbolic links, devices, and
other not-really-a-file entities. This could cause filesystem
corruption!

   One other thing: if you create a `bzip2' binary for public
distribution, please consider linking it statically (`gcc -static').
This avoids all sorts of library-version issues that others may
encounter later on.

   If you build `bzip2' on Win32, you must set `BZ_UNIX' to 0 and
`BZ_LCCWIN32' to 1, in the file `bzip2.c', before compiling.  Otherwise
the resulting binary won't work correctly.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Reporting bugs,  Next: Did you get the right package?,  Prev: Portability issues,  Up: Miscellanea

4.3 Reporting bugs
==================

I tried pretty hard to make sure `bzip2' is bug free, both by design
and by testing. Hopefully you'll never need to read this section for
real.

   Nevertheless, if `bzip2' dies with a segmentation fault, a bus error
or an internal assertion failure, it will ask you to email me a bug
report. Experience from years of feedback of bzip2 users indicates that
almost all these problems can be traced to either compiler bugs or
hardware problems.

   * Recompile the program with no optimisation, and see if it works.
     And/or try a different compiler. I heard all sorts of stories
     about various flavours of GNU C (and other compilers) generating
     bad code for `bzip2', and I've run across two such examples myself.

     2.7.X versions of GNU C are known to generate bad code from time
     to time, at high optimisation levels. If you get problems, try
     using the flags `-O2' `-fomit-frame-pointer'
     `-fno-strength-reduce'. You should specifically not use
     `-funroll-loops'.

     You may notice that the Makefile runs six tests as part of the
     build process. If the program passes all of these, it's a pretty
     good (but not 100%) indication that the compiler has done its job
     correctly.

   * If `bzip2' crashes randomly, and the crashes are not repeatable,
     you may have a flaky memory subsystem.  `bzip2' really hammers your
     memory hierarchy, and if it's a bit marginal, you may get these
     problems. Ditto if your disk or I/O subsystem is slowly failing.
     Yup, this really does happen.

     Try using a different machine of the same type, and see if you can
     repeat the problem.

   * This isn't really a bug, but ... If `bzip2' tells you your file is
     corrupted on decompression, and you obtained the file via FTP,
     there is a possibility that you forgot to tell FTP to do a binary
     mode transfer. That absolutely will cause the file to be
     non-decompressible. You'll have to transfer it again.

   If you've incorporated `libbzip2' into your own program and are
getting problems, please, please, please, check that the parameters you
are passing in calls to the library, are correct, and in accordance
with what the documentation says is allowable.  I have tried to make
the library robust against such problems, but I'm sure I haven't
succeeded.

   Finally, if the above comments don't help, you'll have to send me a
bug report. Now, it's just amazing how many people will send me a bug
report saying something like:


     bzip2 crashed with segmentation fault on my machine

   and absolutely nothing else. Needless to say, a such a report is
totally, utterly, completely and comprehensively 100% useless; a waste
of your time, my time, and net bandwidth. With no details at all,
there's no way I can possibly begin to figure out what the problem is.

   The rules of the game are: facts, facts, facts. Don't omit them
because "oh, they won't be relevant". At the bare minimum:


     Machine type.  Operating system version.
     Exact version of bzip2 (do bzip2 -V).
     Exact version of the compiler used.
     Flags passed to the compiler.

   However, the most important single thing that will help me is the
file that you were trying to compress or decompress at the time the
problem happened. Without that, my ability to do anything more than
speculate about the cause, is limited.


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Did you get the right package?,  Next: Further Reading,  Prev: Reporting bugs,  Up: Miscellanea

4.4 Did you get the right package?
==================================

`bzip2' is a resource hog.  It soaks up large amounts of CPU cycles and
memory. Also, it gives very large latencies. In the worst case, you can
feed many megabytes of uncompressed data into the library before getting
any compressed output, so this probably rules out applications
requiring interactive behaviour.

   These aren't faults of my implementation, I hope, but more an
intrinsic property of the Burrows-Wheeler transform (unfortunately).
Maybe this isn't what you want.

   If you want a compressor and/or library which is faster, uses less
memory but gets pretty good compression, and has minimal latency,
consider Jean-loup Gailly's and Mark Adler's work, `zlib-1.2.1' and
`gzip-1.2.4'. Look for them at http://www.zlib.org
(http://www.zlib.org) and http://www.gzip.org (http://www.gzip.org)
respectively.

   For something faster and lighter still, you might try Markus F X J
Oberhumer's `LZO' real-time compression/decompression library, at
http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource
(http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource).


File: bzip2.info,  Node: Further Reading,  Prev: Did you get the right package?,  Up: Miscellanea

4.5 Further Reading
===================

`bzip2' is not research work, in the sense that it doesn't present any
new ideas.  Rather, it's an engineering exercise based on existing
ideas.

   Four documents describe essentially all the ideas behind `bzip2':

     Michael Burrows and D. J. Wheeler:
       "A block-sorting lossless data compression algorithm"
        10th May 1994.
        Digital SRC Research Report 124.
        ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/SRC/research-reports/SRC-124.ps.gz
        If you have trouble finding it, try searching at the
        New Zealand Digital Library, http://www.nzdl.org.

     Daniel S. Hirschberg and Debra A. LeLewer
       "Efficient Decoding of Prefix Codes"
        Communications of the ACM, April 1990, Vol 33, Number 4.
        You might be able to get an electronic copy of this
        from the ACM Digital Library.

     David J. Wheeler
        Program bred3.c and accompanying document bred3.ps.
        This contains the idea behind the multi-table Huffman coding scheme.
        ftp://ftp.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/djw3/

     Jon L. Bentley and Robert Sedgewick
       "Fast Algorithms for Sorting and Searching Strings"
        Available from Sedgewick's web page,
        www.cs.princeton.edu/~rs

   The following paper gives valuable additional insights into the
algorithm, but is not immediately the basis of any code used in bzip2.

     Peter Fenwick:
        Block Sorting Text Compression
        Proceedings of the 19th Australasian Computer Science Conference,
          Melbourne, Australia.  Jan 31 - Feb 2, 1996.
        ftp://ftp.cs.auckland.ac.nz/pub/peter-f/ACSC96paper.ps

   Kunihiko Sadakane's sorting algorithm, mentioned above, is available
from:

     http://naomi.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~sada/papers/Sada98b.ps.gz

   The Manber-Myers suffix array construction algorithm is described in
a paper available from:

     http://www.cs.arizona.edu/people/gene/PAPERS/suffix.ps

   Finally, the following papers document some investigations I made
into the performance of sorting and decompression algorithms:

     Julian Seward
        On the Performance of BWT Sorting Algorithms
        Proceedings of the IEEE Data Compression Conference 2000
          Snowbird, Utah.  28-30 March 2000.

     Julian Seward
        Space-time Tradeoffs in the Inverse B-W Transform
        Proceedings of the IEEE Data Compression Conference 2001
          Snowbird, Utah.  27-29 March 2001.



Tag Table:
Node: Top270
Node: Introduction1137
Node: How to use bzip22320
Node: NAME2708
Node: SYNOPSIS2974
Node: DESCRIPTION3267
Node: OPTIONS7922
Node: MEMORY MANAGEMENT11235
Node: RECOVERING DATA FROM DAMAGED FILES14772
Node: PERFORMANCE NOTES16495
Node: CAVEATS17779
Node: AUTHOR19076
Node: Programming with libbzip220080
Node: Top-level structure20740
Node: Low-level summary21641
Node: High-level summary23029
Node: Utility functions summary24503
Node: Error handling25766
Node: >Low-level interface30853
Node: BZ2_bzCompressInit31179
Node: BZ2_bzCompress35885
Node: BZ2_bzCompressEnd42954
Node: BZ2_bzDecompressInit43357
Node: BZ2_bzDecompress45050
Node: BZ2_bzDecompressEnd47665
Node: High-level interface48097
Node: BZ2_bzReadOpen50385
Node: BZ2_bzRead52274
Node: BZ2_bzReadGetUnused54901
Node: BZ2_bzReadClose55903
Node: BZ2_bzWriteOpen56562
Node: BZ2_bzWrite57991
Node: BZ2_bzWriteClose58592
Node: Handling embedded compressed data streams60723
Node: Standard file-reading/writing code62709
Node: Utility functions64595
Node: BZ2_bzBuffToBuffCompress64854
Node: BZ2_bzBuffToBuffDecompress66943
Node: zlib compatibility functions69166
Node: Using the library in a stdio-free environment70738
Node: Getting rid of stdio71074
Node: Critical error handling71800
Node: Making a Windows DLL73758
Node: Miscellanea75107
Node: Limitations of the compressed file format75442
Node: Portability issues79071
Node: Reporting bugs81126
Node: Did you get the right package?84665
Node: Further Reading85891

End Tag Table


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