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TITLE>bzip2 and libbzip2 - Introduction</
TITLE>
2310N/AThis program, <
CODE>bzip2</
CODE>,
2310N/Aand associated library <
CODE>libbzip2</
CODE>, are
2310N/ACopyright (C) 1996-1998 Julian R Seward. All rights reserved.
2310N/ARedistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
2310N/Amodification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
2367N/A Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
2367N/A notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2367N/A The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must
2367N/A not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this
2367N/A software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product
2367N/A documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
2367N/A Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must
2367N/A not be misrepresented as being the original software.
2310N/A The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote
2310N/A products derived from this software without specific prior written
2310N/ATHIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS
2310N/AOR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
2310N/AWARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
2310N/AARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY
2310N/ADIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
2310N/ADAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE
2310N/AGOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
2310N/AINTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
2310N/AWHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
2310N/ANEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
2310N/ASOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
2310N/AJulian Seward, Guildford, Surrey, UK.
2367N/A<
CODE>jseward@acm.org</
CODE>
2479N/A<
CODE>bzip2</
CODE>/<
CODE>libbzip2</
CODE> version 0.9.0c of 18 October 1998.
2310N/APATENTS: To the best of my knowledge, <
CODE>bzip2</
CODE> does not use any patented
2310N/Aalgorithms. However, I do not have the resources available to carry out
2310N/Aa full patent search. Therefore I cannot give any guarantee of the
2310N/A<
CODE>bzip2</
CODE> compresses files using the Burrows-Wheeler
2310N/Ablock-sorting text compression algorithm, and Huffman coding.
2310N/ACompression is generally considerably better than that
2374N/Aand approaches the performance of the PPM family of statistical compressors.
2479N/A<
CODE>bzip2</
CODE> is built on top of <
CODE>libbzip2</
CODE>, a flexible library
2310N/Afor handling compressed data in the <
CODE>bzip2</
CODE> format. This manual
2310N/Adescribes both how to use the program and
2310N/Ahow to work with the library interface. Most of the
2310N/Amanual is devoted to this library, not the program,
2479N/Awhich is good news if your interest is only in the program.
2310N/AChapter 2 describes how to use <
CODE>bzip2</
CODE>; this is the only part
2310N/Ayou need to read if you just want to know how to operate the program.
2310N/AChapter 3 describes the programming interfaces in detail, and
2310N/AChapter 4 records some miscellaneous notes which I thought
2310N/Aought to be recorded somewhere.