4624N/AZLIB DATA COMPRESSION LIBRARY
4624N/Azlib 1.2.3 is a general purpose data compression library. All the code is
4624N/Athread safe. The data format used by the zlib library is described by RFCs
(Request for Comments) 1950 to 1952 in the files
and
rfc1952.txt (gzip format). These documents are also available in other
All functions of the compression library are documented in the file
zlib.h(volunteer to write man pages welcome, contact zlib@gzip.org). A usage example
of the library is given in the file
example.c which also tests that the library
is working correctly. Another example is given in the file
minigzip.c. The
compression library itself is composed of all source files except
example.c and
To compile all files and run the test program, follow the instructions given at
the top of Makefile. In short "make test; make install" should work for most
machines. For Unix: "./configure; make test; make install". For MSDOS, use one
Questions about zlib should be sent to <zlib@gzip.org>, or to Gilles Vollant
<info@winimage.com> for the Windows DLL version. The zlib home page is
please check this site to verify that you have the latest version of zlib;
otherwise get the latest version and check whether the problem still exists or
Mark Nelson <markn@ieee.org> wrote an article about zlib for the Jan. 1997
issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal; a copy of the article is available in
The changes made in version 1.2.3 are documented in the file ChangeLog.
Unsupported third party contributions are provided in directory "contrib".
A Java implementation of zlib is available in the Java Development Kit
A Perl interface to zlib written by Paul Marquess <pmqs@cpan.org> is in the
CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) sites
A Python interface to zlib written by
A.M. Kuchling <amk@amk.ca> is
available in Python 1.5 and later versions, see
A zlib binding for TCL written by Andreas Kupries <a.kupries@westend.com> is
An experimental package to read and write files in .zip format, written on top
of zlib by Gilles Vollant <info@winimage.com>, is available in the
- For 64-bit Irix,
deflate.c must be compiled without any optimization. With
-O, one libpng test fails. The test works in 32 bit mode (with the -n32
compiler flag). The compiler bug has been reported to SGI.
- zlib doesn't work with gcc 2.6.3 on a DEC 3000/300LX under OSF/1 2.1 it works
- On Digital Unix 4.0D (formely OSF/1) on AlphaServer, the cc option -std1 is
necessary to get gzprintf working correctly. This is done by configure.
- zlib doesn't work on HP-UX 9.05 with some versions of
/bin/cc. It works with
other compilers. Use "make test" to check your compiler.
- gzdopen is not supported on RISCOS, BEOS and by some Mac compilers.
- When building a shared,
i.e. dynamic library on Mac OS X, the library must be
installed before testing (do "make install" before "make test"), since the
library location is specified in the library.
The deflate format used by zlib was defined by Phil Katz. The deflate
and zlib specifications were written by L. Peter Deutsch. Thanks to all the
people who reported problems and suggested various improvements in zlib;
they are too numerous to cite here.
(C) 1995-2004 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler
This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
arising from the use of this software.
Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it
freely, subject to the following restrictions:
1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
appreciated but is not required.
2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
misrepresented as being the original software.
3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
Jean-loup Gailly Mark Adler
jloup@gzip.org madler@alumni.caltech.edu
If you use the zlib library in a product, we would appreciate *not*
receiving lengthy legal documents to sign. The sources are provided
for free but without warranty of any kind. The library has been
entirely written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler; it does not
include third-party code.
If you redistribute modified sources, we would appreciate that you include
in the file ChangeLog history information documenting your changes. Please
read the FAQ for more information on the distribution of modified source