| Message |
Have a look in zlib.h - that describes in some detail how to use the routines.
However to save you the trouble, here is the relevant portion ...
deflate compresses as much data as possible, and stops when the input
buffer becomes empty or the output buffer becomes full. It may introduce some
output latency (reading input without producing any output) except when
forced to flush.
The detailed semantics are as follows. deflate performs one or both of the
following actions:
- Compress more input starting at next_in and update next_in and avail_in
accordingly. If not all input can be processed (because there is not
enough room in the output buffer), next_in and avail_in are updated and
processing will resume at this point for the next call of deflate().
- Provide more output starting at next_out and update next_out and avail_out
accordingly. This action is forced if the parameter flush is non zero.
Forcing flush frequently degrades the compression ratio, so this parameter
should be set only when necessary (in interactive applications).
Some output may be provided even if flush is not set.
Before the call of deflate(), the application should ensure that at least
one of the actions is possible, by providing more input and/or consuming
more output, and updating avail_in or avail_out accordingly; avail_out
should never be zero before the call. The application can consume the
compressed output when it wants, for example when the output buffer is full
(avail_out == 0), or after each call of deflate(). If deflate returns Z_OK
and with zero avail_out, it must be called again after making room in the
output buffer because there might be more output pending.
If the parameter flush is set to Z_SYNC_FLUSH, all pending output is
flushed to the output buffer and the output is aligned on a byte boundary, so
that the decompressor can get all input data available so far. (In particular
avail_in is zero after the call if enough output space has been provided
before the call.) Flushing may degrade compression for some compression
algorithms and so it should be used only when necessary.
If flush is set to Z_FULL_FLUSH, all output is flushed as with
Z_SYNC_FLUSH, and the compression state is reset so that decompression can
restart from this point if previous compressed data has been damaged or if
random access is desired. Using Z_FULL_FLUSH too often can seriously degrade
the compression.
If deflate returns with avail_out == 0, this function must be called again
with the same value of the flush parameter and more output space (updated
avail_out), until the flush is complete (deflate returns with non-zero
avail_out).
If the parameter flush is set to Z_FINISH, pending input is processed,
pending output is flushed and deflate returns with Z_STREAM_END if there
was enough output space; if deflate returns with Z_OK, this function must be
called again with Z_FINISH and more output space (updated avail_out) but no
more input data, until it returns with Z_STREAM_END or an error. After
deflate has returned Z_STREAM_END, the only possible operations on the
stream are deflateReset or deflateEnd.
Z_FINISH can be used immediately after deflateInit if all the compression
is to be done in a single step. In this case, avail_out must be at least
0.1% larger than avail_in plus 12 bytes. If deflate does not return
Z_STREAM_END, then it must be called again as described above.
deflate() sets strm->adler to the adler32 checksum of all input read
so far (that is, total_in bytes).
deflate() may update data_type if it can make a good guess about
the input data type (Z_ASCII or Z_BINARY). In doubt, the data is considered
binary. This field is only for information purposes and does not affect
the compression algorithm in any manner.
deflate() returns Z_OK if some progress has been made (more input
processed or more output produced), Z_STREAM_END if all input has been
consumed and all output has been produced (only when flush is set to
Z_FINISH), Z_STREAM_ERROR if the stream state was inconsistent (for example
if next_in or next_out was NULL), Z_BUF_ERROR if no progress is possible
(for example avail_in or avail_out was zero).
|
- Nick Gammon
www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com | top |
|