zlib 1.2.1 Manual


     Contents

  1. Prologue
  2. Introduction
  3. Utility Functions
  4. Basic Functions
  5. Advanced Functions
  6. Constants
  7. struct z_stream_s
  8. Checksum Functions
  9. Callback Functions
  10. Misc

     Prologue

'zlib' general purpose compression library version 1.2.1, November 17th, 2003

Copyright (C) 1995-2003 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
jloup@gzip.org
Mark Adler
madler@alumni.caltech.edu
The data format used by the zlib library is described by RFCs (Request for Comments) 1950 to 1952 in the files http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1950.txt (zlib format), rfc1951.txt (deflate format) and rfc1952.txt (gzip format).

Visit http://www.gzip.org/zlib/ for the official zlib web page.


     Introduction

     The 'zlib' compression library provides in-memory compression and decompression functions, including integrity checks of the uncompressed data. This version of the library supports only one compression method (deflation) but other algorithms will be added later and will have the same stream interface.

     Compression can be done in a single step if the buffers are large enough (for example if an input file is mmap'ed), or can be done by repeated calls of the compression function. In the latter case, the application must provide more input and/or consume the output (providing more output space) before each call.

     The compressed data format used by the in-memory functions is the zlib format, which is a zlib wrapper documented in RFC 1950, wrapped around a deflate stream, which is itself documented in RFC 1951.

     The library also supports reading and writing files in gzip (.gz) format with an interface similar to that of stdio using the functions that start with "gz".  The gzip format is different from the zlib format.  gzip is a gzip wrapper, documented in RFC 1952, wrapped around a deflate stream.

     The zlib format was designed to be compact and fast for use in memory and on communications channels.  The gzip format was designed for single-file compression on file systems, has a larger header than zlib to maintain directory information, and uses a different, slower check method than zlib.

     This library does not provide any functions to write gzip files in memory. However such functions could be easily written using zlib's deflate function, the documentation in the gzip RFC, and the examples in gzio.c.

     The library does not install any signal handler. The decoder checks the consistency of the compressed data, so the library should never crash even in case of corrupted input.


     Utility functions

     The following utility functions are implemented on top of the basic stream-oriented functions. To simplify the interface, some default options are assumed (compression level and memory usage, standard memory allocation functions). The source code of these utility functions can easily be modified if you need special options.

Function list

Function description

sequence compress (sequence source)
Compresses the source buffer into the destination buffer. Returns {len, buffer}, where len is the length of buffer. If buffer is equal to "", then check len for the error code (if there is one).

compress returns Z_OK if success, Z_MEM_ERROR if there was not enough memory, Z_BUF_ERROR if there was not enough room in the output buffer.

sequence compress2 (sequence source, integer level)
Compresses the source buffer into the destination buffer. The level parameter has the same meaning as in deflateInit. Returns {len, buffer}, where len is the length of buffer. If buffer is equal to "", then check len for the error code (if there is one).

compress2 returns Z_OK if success, Z_MEM_ERROR if there was not enough memory, Z_BUF_ERROR if there was not enough room in the output buffer, Z_STREAM_ERROR if the level parameter is invalid.

atom compressBound (atom sourceLen)
compressBound() returns an upper bound on the compressed size after compress() or compress2() on sourceLen bytes. It would be used before a compress() or compress2() call to allocate the destination buffer.
 
sequence uncompress (sequence source, integer destLen)
Decompresses the source buffer into the destination buffer. Upon entry, destLen is the total size of the destination buffer, which must be large enough to hold the entire uncompressed data. (The size of the uncompressed data must have been saved previously by the compressor and transmitted to the decompressor by some mechanism outside the scope of this compression library.) Returns {len, buffer}, where len is the length of buffer. If buffer is equal to "", then check len for the error code (if there is one).

This function can be used to decompress a whole file at once if the input file is mmap'ed.

uncompress returns Z_OK if success, Z_MEM_ERROR if there was not enough memory, Z_BUF_ERROR if there was not enough room in the output buffer, or Z_DATA_ERROR if the input data was corrupted or incomplete.


gzFile gzopen (sequence path, sequence mode)
Opens a gzip (.gz) file for reading or writing. The mode parameter is as in open ("rb" or "wb") but can also include a compression level ("wb9") or a strategy: 'f' for filtered data as in "wb6f", 'h' for Huffman only compression as in "wb1h", or 'R' for run-length encoding as in "wb1R". (See the description of deflateInit2 for more information about the strategy parameter.)

gzopen can be used to read a file which is not in gzip format ; in this case gzread will directly read from the file without decompression.

gzopen returns NULL if the file could not be opened or if there was insufficient memory to allocate the (de)compression Zstate ; errno can be checked to distinguish the two cases (if errno is zero, the zlib error is Z_MEM_ERROR).

gzFile gzdopen (integer fd, sequence mode)
-- NOTE: This function is here for completeness' sake. It will not work with
-- Euphoria as Euphoria does not use file descriptors. However, if you happen
-- to use file descriptors in some other way (not using Euphoria's default
-- open() and close()), then you can still use this function.
gzdopen() associates a gzFile with the file descriptor fd. File descriptors are obtained from calls like open, dup, creat, pipe or fileno (in the file has been previously opened with fopen). The mode parameter is as in gzopen.

The next call of gzclose on the returned gzFile will also close the file descriptor fd, just like fclose(fdopen(fd), mode) closes the file descriptor fd. If you want to keep fd open, use gzdopen(dup(fd), mode).

gzdopen returns NULL if there was insufficient memory to allocate the (de)compression Zstate.

integer gzsetparams (gzFile file, integer level, integer strategy)
Dynamically update the compression level or strategy. See the description of deflateInit2 for the meaning of these parameters.

gzsetparams returns Z_OK if success, or Z_STREAM_ERROR if the file was not opened for writing.

sequence gzread (gzFile file, integer len)
Reads the given number of uncompressed bytes from the compressed file. If the input file was not in gzip format, gzread copies the given number of bytes into the buffer.

gzread returns the number of uncompressed bytes actually read (in {bytes, buffer}; (0 for end of file, -1 for error)).

integer gzwrite (gzFile file, sequence buf)
Writes the given number of uncompressed bytes into the compressed file. gzwrite returns the number of uncompressed bytes actually written (0 in case of error).

integer gzprintf (gzFile file, sequence format, sequence params)
Converts, formats, and writes the args to the compressed file under control of the format string, as in fprintf. gzprintf returns the number of uncompressed bytes actually written (0 in case of error).  The number of uncompressed bytes written is limited to 4095. The caller should assure that this limit is not exceeded. If it is exceeded, then gzprintf() will return return an error (0) with nothing written. In this case, there may also be a buffer overflow with unpredictable consequences, which is possible only if zlib was compiled with the insecure functions sprintf() or vsprintf() because the secure snprintf() or vsnprintf() functions were not available.

-- NOTE:  Because this function uses the cdecl calling convention, this function requires at least Euphoria version 2.4 on Windows.
integer gzputs (gzFile file, sequence s)
Writes the given null-terminated string to the compressed file, excluding the terminating null character.

gzputs returns the number of characters written, or -1 in case of error.

sequence gzgets (gzFile file, integer len)
Reads bytes from the compressed file until len-1 characters are read, or a newline character is read and transferred to buf, or an end-of-file condition is encountered. The string is then terminated with a null character.

gzgets returns buf, or "" in case of error.

integer gzputc (gzFile file, integer c)
Writes c, converted to an unsigned char, into the compressed file. gzputc returns the value that was written, or -1 in case of error.

integer gzgetc (gzFile file)
Reads one byte from the compressed file. gzgetc returns this byte or -1 in case of end of file or error.

integer gzungetc (gzFile file, integer c)
Push one character back onto the stream to be read again later. Only one character of push-back is allowed. gzungetc() returns the character pushed, or -1 on failure. gzungetc() will fail if a character has been pushed but not read yet, or if c is -1. The pushed character will be discarded if the stream is repositioned with gzseek() or gzrewind().
 
integer gzflush (gzFile file, integer flush)
Flushes all pending output into the compressed file. The parameter flush is as in the deflate() function. The return value is the zlib error number (see function gzerror below). gzflush returns Z_OK if the flush parameter is Z_FINISH and all output could be flushed.

gzflush should be called only when strictly necessary because it can degrade compression.

integer gzseek (gzFile file, integer offset, integer whence)
Sets the starting position for the next gzread or gzwrite on the given compressed file. The offset represents a number of bytes in the uncompressed data stream. The whence parameter is defined as in lseek(2); the value SEEK_END is not supported.

If the file is opened for reading, this function is emulated but can be extremely slow. If the file is opened for writing, only forward seeks are supported ; gzseek then compresses a sequence of zeroes up to the new starting position.

gzseek returns the resulting offset location as measured in bytes from the beginning of the uncompressed stream, or -1 in case of error, in particular if the file is opened for writing and the new starting position would be before the current position.

integer gzrewind (gzFile file)
Rewinds the given file. This function is supported only for reading.

gzrewind(file) is equivalent to gzseek(file, 0, SEEK_SET)

integer gztell (gzFile file)
Returns the starting position for the next gzread or gzwrite on the given compressed file. This position represents a number of bytes in the uncompressed data stream.

gztell(file) is equivalent to gzseek(file, 0, SEEK_CUR)

integer gzeof (gzFile file)
Returns 1 when EOF has previously been detected reading the given input stream, otherwise zero.

integer gzclose (gzFile file)
Flushes all pending output if necessary, closes the compressed file and deallocates all the (de)compression Zstate. The return value is the zlib error number (see function gzerror below).

sequence gzerror (gzFile file)
Returns the error message for the last error which occurred on the given compressed file as {errnum, errormsg} errnum is set to zlib error number. If an error occurred in the file system and not in the compression library, errnum is set to Z_ERRNO and the application may consult errno to get the exact error code.

procedure gzclearerr (gzFile file)
Clears the error and end-of-file flags for file. This is analogous to the clearerr() function in stdio. This is useful for continuing to read a gzip file that is being written concurrently.

     Basic functions

Function list

Function description

sequence zlibVersion ()
The application can compare zlibVersion and ZLIB_VERSION for consistency. If the first character differs, the library code actually used is not compatible with the zlib.e header file used by the application. This check is automatically made by deflateInit and inflateInit.

integer deflateInit (z_streamp strm, integer level)
Initializes the internal stream Zstate for compression. The fields Zalloc, Zfree and Zopaque must be initialized before by the caller. If Zalloc and Zfree are set to Z_NULL, deflateInit updates them to use default allocation functions.

The compression level must be Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION, or between 0 and 9: 1 gives best speed, 9 gives best compression, 0 gives no compression at all (the input data is simply copied a block at a time).

Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION requests a default compromise between speed and compression (currently equivalent to level 6).

deflateInit returns Z_OK if success, Z_MEM_ERROR if there was not enough memory, Z_STREAM_ERROR if level is not a valid compression level, Z_VERSION_ERROR if the zlib library version (zlib_version) is incompatible with the version assumed by the caller (ZLIB_VERSION). Zmsg is set to null if there is no error message. deflateInit does not perform any compression: this will be done by deflate().

integer deflate (z_streamp strm, integer flush)
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:

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 Zavail_in or Zavail_out accordingly ; Zavail_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 (Zavail_out == 0), or after each call of deflate(). If deflate returns Z_OK and with zero Zavail_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 Zavail_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 Zstate 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 Zavail_out == 0, this function must be called again with the same value of the flush parameter and more output space (updated Zavail_out), until the flush is complete (deflate returns with non-zero Zavail_out). In the case of a Z_FULL_FLUSH or Z_SYNC_FLUSH, make sure that Zavail_out is greater than six to avoid repeated flush markers due to Zavail_out == 0 on return.

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 Zavail_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, Zavail_out must be at least the value returned by deflateBound. If deflate does not return Z_STREAM_END, then it must be called again as described above.

deflate() sets strm-> Zadler to the adler32 checksum of all input read so far (that is, Ztotal_in bytes).

deflate() may update Zdata_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 Zstate was inconsistent (for example if Znext_in or Znext_out was NULL), Z_BUF_ERROR if no progress is possible (for example Zavail_in or Zavail_out was zero). Note that Z_BUF_ERROR is not fatal, and deflate() can be called again with more input and more output space to continue compressing. 

integer deflateEnd (z_streamp strm)
All dynamically allocated data structures for this stream are freed. This function discards any unprocessed input and does not flush any pending output.

deflateEnd returns Z_OK if success, Z_STREAM_ERROR if the stream Zstate was inconsistent, Z_DATA_ERROR if the stream was freed prematurely (some input or output was discarded). In the error case, Zmsg may be set but then points to a static string (which must not be deallocated).

integer inflateInit (z_streamp strm)
Initializes the internal stream Zstate for decompression. The fields Znext_in, Zavail_in, Zalloc, Zfree and Zopaque must be initialized before by the caller. If Znext_in is not Z_NULL and Zavail_in is large enough (the exact value depends on the compression method), inflateInit determines the compression method from the zlib header and allocates all data structures accordingly ; otherwise the allocation will be deferred to the first call of inflate. If Zalloc and Zfree are set to Z_NULL, inflateInit updates them to use default allocation functions.

inflateInit returns Z_OK if success, Z_MEM_ERROR if there was not enough memory, Z_VERSION_ERROR if the zlib library version is incompatible with the version assumed by the caller. msg is set to null if there is no error message. inflateInit does not perform any decompression apart from reading the zlib header if present: this will be done by inflate(). (So next_in and avail_in may be modified, but next_out and avail_out are unchanged.)

integer inflate (z_streamp strm, integer flush)
inflate decompresses as much data as possible, and stops when the input buffer becomes empty or the output buffer becomes full. It may some introduce some output latency (reading input without producing any output) except when forced to flush.

The detailed semantics are as follows. inflate performs one or both of the following actions:

Before the call of inflate(), the application should ensure that at least one of the actions is possible, by providing more input and/or consuming more output, and updating the Znext_* and Zavail_* values accordingly. The application can consume the uncompressed output when it wants, for example when the output buffer is full (Zavail_out == 0), or after each call of inflate(). If inflate returns Z_OK and with zero Zavail_out, it must be called again after making room in the output buffer because there might be more output pending.

The flush parameter of inflate() can be Z_NO_FLUSH, Z_SYNC_FLUSH, Z_FINISH, or Z_BLOCK. Z_SYNC_FLUSH requests that inflate() flush as much output as possible to the output buffer. Z_BLOCK requests that inflate() stop if and when it get to the next deflate block boundary. When decoding the zlib or gzip format, this will cause inflate() to return immediately after the header and before the first block. When doing a raw inflate, inflate() will go ahead and process the first block, and will return when it gets to the end of that block, or when it runs out of data.

The Z_BLOCK option assists in appending to or combining deflate streams. Also to assist in this, on return inflate() will set strm->Zdata_type to the number of unused bits in the last byte taken from strm->Znext_in, plus 64 if inflate() is currently decoding the last block in the deflate stream, plus 128 if inflate() returned immediately after decoding an end-of-block code or decoding the complete header up to just before the first byte of the deflate stream. The end-of-block will not be indicated until all of the uncompressed data from that block has been written to strm->Znext_out.  The number of unused bits may in general be greater than seven, except when bit 7 of Zdata_type is set, in which case the number of unused bits will be less than eight.

inflate() should normally be called until it returns Z_STREAM_END or an error. However if all decompression is to be performed in a single step (a single call of inflate), the parameter flush should be set to Z_FINISH. In this case all pending input is processed and all pending output is flushed; Zavail_out must be large enough to hold all the uncompressed data. (The size of the uncompressed data may have been saved by the compressor for this purpose.) The next operation on this stream must be inflateEnd to deallocate the decompression Zstate. The use of Z_FINISH is never required, but can be used to inform inflate that a faster approach may be used for the single inflate() call.

In this implementation, inflate() always flushes as much output as possible to the output buffer, and always uses the faster approach on the first call. So the only effect of the flush parameter in this implementation is on the return value of inflate(), as noted below, or when it returns early because Z_BLOCK is used.

If a preset dictionary is needed after this call (see inflateSetDictionary below), inflate sets strm->Zadler to the adler32 checksum of the dictionary chosen by the compressor and returns Z_NEED_DICT; otherwise it sets strm->Zadler to the adler32 checksum of all output produced so far (that is, Ztotal_out bytes) and returns Z_OK, Z_STREAM_END or an error code as described below. At the end of the stream, inflate() checks that its computed adler32 checksum is equal to that saved by the compressor and returns Z_STREAM_END only if the checksum is correct.

inflate() will decompress and check either zlib-wrapped or gzip-wrapped deflate data.  The header type is detected automatically.  Any information contained in the gzip header is not retained, so applications that need that information should instead use raw inflate, see inflateInit2() below, or inflateBack() and perform their own processing of the gzip header and trailer.

inflate() returns Z_OK if some progress has been made (more input processed or more output produced), Z_STREAM_END if the end of the compressed data has been reached and all uncompressed output has been produced, Z_NEED_DICT if a preset dictionary is needed at this point, Z_DATA_ERROR if the input data was corrupted (input stream not conforming to the zlib format or incorrect check value), Z_STREAM_ERROR if the stream structure was inconsistent (for example if Znext_in or Znext_out was NULL), Z_MEM_ERROR if there was not enough memory, Z_BUF_ERROR if no progress is possible or if there was not enough room in the output buffer when Z_FINISH is used. Note that Z_BUF_ERROR is not fatal, and inflate() can be called again with more input and more output space to continue decompressing. If Z_DATA_ERROR is returned, the application may then call inflateSync() to look for a good compression block if a partial recovery of the data is desired.

integer inflateEnd (z_streamp strm)
All dynamically allocated data structures for this stream are freed. This function discards any unprocessed input and does not flush any pending output.

inflateEnd returns Z_OK if success, Z_STREAM_ERROR if the stream Zstate was inconsistent. In the error case, Zmsg may be set but then points to a static string (which must not be deallocated).


     Advanced functions

     The following functions are needed only in some special applications.

Function list

Function description

integer deflateInit2 (z_streamp strm, integer level, integer method, integer windowBits, integer memLevel, integer strategy)
This is another version of deflateInit with more compression options. The fields Znext_in,Zalloc, Zfree and Zopaque must be initialized before by the caller.

The method parameter is the compression method. It must be Z_DEFLATED in this version of the library.

The windowBits parameter is the base two logarithm of the window size (the size of the history buffer). It should be in the range 8..15 for this version of the library. Larger values of this parameter result in better compression at the expense of memory usage. The default value is 15 if deflateInit is used instead.

windowBits can also be -8..-15 for raw deflate. In this case, -windowBits determines the window size. deflate() will then generate raw deflate data with no zlib header or trailer, and will not compute an adler32 check value.

windowBits can also be greater than 15 for optional gzip encoding. Add 16 to windowBits to write a simple gzip header and trailer around the compressed data instead of a zlib wrapper. The gzip header will have no file name, no extra data, no comment, no modification time (set to zero), no header crc, and the operating system will be set to 255 (unknown).

The memLevel parameter specifies how much memory should be allocated for the internal compression Zstate. memLevel=1 uses minimum memory but is slow and reduces compression ratio ; memLevel=9 uses maximum memory for optimal speed. The default value is 8.

The strategy parameter is used to tune the compression algorithm. Use the value Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY for normal data, Z_FILTERED for data produced by a filter (or predictor), Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY to force Huffman encoding only (no string match), or Z_RLE to limit match distances to one (run-length encoding). Filtered data consists mostly of small values with a somewhat random distribution. In this case, the compression algorithm is tuned to compress them better. The effect of Z_FILTERED is to force more Huffman coding and less string matching; it is somewhat intermediate between Z_DEFAULT and Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY. Z_RLE is designed to be almost as fast as Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY, but give better compression for PNG image data. The strategy parameter only affects the compression ratio but not the correctness of the compressed output even if it is not set appropriately.

deflateInit2 returns Z_OK if success, Z_MEM_ERROR if there was not enough memory, Z_STREAM_ERROR if a parameter is invalid (such as an invalid method). Zmsg is set to null if there is no error message. deflateInit2 does not perform any compression: this will be done by deflate().

integer deflateSetDictionary (z_streamp strm, sequence dictionary)
Initializes the compression dictionary from the given byte sequence without producing any compressed output. This function must be called immediately after deflateInit, deflateInit2 or deflateReset, before any call of deflate. The compressor and decompressor must use exactly the same dictionary (see inflateSetDictionary).

The dictionary should consist of strings (byte sequences) that are likely to be encountered later in the data to be compressed, with the most commonly used strings preferably put towards the end of the dictionary. Using a dictionary is most useful when the data to be compressed is short and can be predicted with good accuracy ; the data can then be compressed better than with the default empty dictionary.

Depending on the size of the compression data structures selected by deflateInit or deflateInit2, a part of the dictionary may in effect be discarded, for example if the dictionary is larger than the window size in deflate or deflate2. Thus the strings most likely to be useful should be put at the end of the dictionary, not at the front.

Upon return of this function, strm-> Zadler is set to the adler32 value of the dictionary ; the decompressor may later use this value to determine which dictionary has been used by the compressor. (The adler32 value applies to the whole dictionary even if only a subset of the dictionary is actually used by the compressor.) If a raw deflate was requested, then the adler32 value is not computed and strm->Zadler is not set.

deflateSetDictionary returns Z_OK if success, or Z_STREAM_ERROR if a parameter is invalid (such as NULL dictionary) or the stream Zstate is inconsistent (for example if deflate has already been called for this stream or if the compression method is bsort). deflateSetDictionary does not perform any compression: this will be done by deflate().

integer deflateCopy (z_streamp dest, z_streamp source)
Sets the destination stream as a complete copy of the source stream.

This function can be useful when several compression strategies will be tried, for example when there are several ways of pre-processing the input data with a filter. The streams that will be discarded should then be freed by calling deflateEnd. Note that deflateCopy duplicates the internal compression Zstate which can be quite large, so this strategy is slow and can consume lots of memory.

deflateCopy returns Z_OK if success, Z_MEM_ERROR if there was not enough memory, Z_STREAM_ERROR if the source stream Zstate was inconsistent (such as Zalloc being NULL). Zmsg is left unchanged in both source and destination.

integer deflateReset (z_streamp strm)
This function is equivalent to deflateEnd followed by deflateInit, but does not free and reallocate all the internal compression Zstate. The stream will keep the same compression level and any other attributes that may have been set by deflateInit2.

deflateReset returns Z_OK if success, or Z_STREAM_ERROR if the source stream Zstate was inconsistent (such as Zalloc or Zstate being NULL).

integer deflateParams (z_streamp strm, integer level, integer strategy)
Dynamically update the compression level and compression strategy. The interpretation of level and strategy is as in deflateInit2. This can be used to switch between compression and straight copy of the input data, or to switch to a different kind of input data requiring a different strategy. If the compression level is changed, the input available so far is compressed with the old level (and may be flushed); the new level will take effect only at the next call of deflate().

Before the call of deflateParams, the stream Zstate must be set as for a call of deflate(), since the currently available input may have to be compressed and flushed. In particular, strm-> Zavail_out must be non-zero.

deflateParams returns Z_OK if success, Z_STREAM_ERROR if the source stream Zstate was inconsistent or if a parameter was invalid, Z_BUF_ERROR if strm-> Zavail_out was zero.

atom deflateBound (z_streamp strm, atom sourceLen)
deflateBound() returns an upper bound on the compressed size after deflation of sourceLen bytes. It must be called after deflateInit() or deflateInit2(). This would be used to allocate an output buffer for deflation in a single pass, and so would be called before deflate().
 
integer deflatePrime (z_streamp strm, integer bits, integer value)
deflatePrime() inserts bits in the deflate output stream. The intent is that this function is used to start off the deflate output with the bits leftover from a previous deflate stream when appending to it. As such, this function can only be used for raw deflate, and must be used before the first deflate() call after a deflateInit2() or deflateReset(). bits must be less than or equal to 16, and that many of the least significant bits of value will be inserted in the output.

deflatePrime returns Z_OK if success, or Z_STREAM_ERROR if the source stream state was inconsistent.

integer inflateInit2 (z_streamp strm, integer windowBits)
This is another version of inflateInit with an extra parameter. The fields Znext_in, Zavail_in, Zalloc, Zfree and Zopaque must be initialized before by the caller.

The windowBits parameter is the base two logarithm of the maximum window size (the size of the history buffer). It should be in the range 8..15 for this version of the library. The default value is 15 if inflateInit is used instead. windowBits must be greater than or equal to the windowBits value provided to deflateInit2() while compressing, or it must be equal to 15 if deflateInit2() was not used. If a compressed stream with a larger window size is given as input, inflate() will return with the error code Z_DATA_ERROR instead of trying to allocate a larger window.

windowBits can also be -8..-15 for raw inflate. In this case, -windowBits determines the window size. inflate() will then process raw deflate data, not looking for a zlib or gzip header, not generating a check value, and not looking for any check values for comparison at the end of the stream. This is for use with other formats that use the deflate compressed data format such as zip.  Those formats provide their own check values. If a custom format is developed using the raw deflate format for compressed data, it is recommended that a check value such as an adler32 or a crc32 be applied to the uncompressed data as is done in the zlib, gzip, and zip formats. For most applications, the zlib format should be used as is. Note that comments above on the use in deflateInit2() applies to the magnitude of windowBits.

windowBits can also be greater than 15 for optional gzip decoding. Add 32 to windowBits to enable zlib and gzip decoding with automatic header detection, or add 16 to decode only the gzip format (the zlib format will return a Z_DATA_ERROR).

inflateInit2 returns Z_OK if success, Z_MEM_ERROR if there was not enough memory, Z_STREAM_ERROR if a parameter is invalid (such as a negative memLevel). Zmsg is set to null if there is no error message. inflateInit2 does not perform any decompression apart from reading the zlib header if present: this will be done by inflate(). (So Znext_in and Zavail_in may be modified, but Znext_out and Zavail_out are unchanged.)

integer inflateSetDictionary (z_streamp strm, sequence dictionary)
Initializes the decompression dictionary from the given uncompressed byte sequence. This function must be called immediately after a call of inflate if this call returned Z_NEED_DICT. The dictionary chosen by the compressor can be determined from the adler32 value returned by this call of inflate. The compressor and decompressor must use exactly the same dictionary (see deflateSetDictionary).

inflateSetDictionary returns Z_OK if success, Z_STREAM_ERROR if a parameter is invalid (such as NULL dictionary) or the stream Zstate is inconsistent, Z_DATA_ERROR if the given dictionary doesn't match the expected one (incorrect adler32 value). inflateSetDictionary does not perform any decompression: this will be done by subsequent calls of inflate().

integer inflateSync (z_streamp strm)
Skips invalid compressed data until a full flush point (see above the description of deflate with Z_FULL_FLUSH) can be found, or until all available input is skipped. No output is provided.

inflateSync returns Z_OK if a full flush point has been found, Z_BUF_ERROR if no more input was provided, Z_DATA_ERROR if no flush point has been found, or Z_STREAM_ERROR if the stream structure was inconsistent. In the success case, the application may save the current current value of Ztotal_in which indicates where valid compressed data was found. In the error case, the application may repeatedly call inflateSync, providing more input each time, until success or end of the input data.

integer inflateCopy (z_streamp dest, z_streamp source)
Sets the destination stream as a complete copy of the source stream.

This function can be useful when randomly accessing a large stream. The first pass through the stream can periodically record the inflate state, allowing restarting inflate at those points when randomly accessing the stream.

inflateCopy returns Z_OK if success, Z_MEM_ERROR if there was not enough memory, Z_STREAM_ERROR if the source stream state was inconsistent (such as Zalloc being NULL). Zmsg is left unchanged in both source and destination.

integer inflateReset (z_streamp strm)
This function is equivalent to inflateEnd followed by inflateInit, but does not free and reallocate all the internal decompression Zstate. The stream will keep attributes that may have been set by inflateInit2.

inflateReset returns Z_OK if success, or Z_STREAM_ERROR if the source stream Zstate was inconsistent (such as Zalloc or Zstate being NULL).

integer inflateBackInit (z_streamp strm, integer windowBits, atom window)
Initialize the internal stream state for decompression using inflateBack() calls. The fields Zalloc, Zfree and Zopaque in strm must be initialized before the call. If Zalloc and Zfree are Z_NULL, then the default library-derived memory allocation routines are used. windowBits is the base two logarithm of the window size, in the range 8..15. window is a caller supplied buffer of that size. Except for special applications where it is assured that deflate was used with small window sizes, windowBits must be 15 and a 32K byte window must be supplied to be able to decompress general deflate streams.

See inflateBack() for the usage of these routines.

inflateBackInit will return Z_OK on success, Z_STREAM_ERROR if any of the paramaters are invalid, Z_MEM_ERROR if the internal state could not be allocated, or Z_VERSION_ERROR if the version of the library does not match the version of the header file.

integer inflateBack (z_streamp strm, in_func in, atom in_desc, out_func out, atom out_desc)
inflateBack() does a raw inflate with a single call using a call-back interface for input and output. This is more efficient than inflate() for file i/o applications in that it avoids copying between the output and the sliding window by simply making the window itself the output buffer. This function trusts the application to not change the output buffer passed by the output function, at least until inflateBack() returns.

inflateBackInit() must be called first to allocate the internal state and to initialize the state with the user-provided window buffer. inflateBack() may then be used multiple times to inflate a complete, raw deflate stream with each call. inflateBackEnd() is then called to free the allocated state.

A raw deflate stream is one with no zlib or gzip header or trailer. This routine would normally be used in a utility that reads zip or gzip files and writes out uncompressed files. The utility would decode the header and process the trailer on its own, hence this routine expects only the raw deflate stream to decompress. This is different from the normal behavior of inflate(), which expects either a zlib or gzip header and trailer around the deflate stream.

inflateBack() uses two subroutines supplied by the caller that are then called by inflateBack() for input and output. inflateBack() calls those routines until it reads a complete deflate stream and writes out all of the uncompressed data, or until it encounters an error. The function's parameters and return types are defined below in the in_func and out_func typedefs. inflateBack() will call in(in_desc, &buf) which should return the number of bytes of provided input, and a pointer to that input in buf. If there is no input available, in() must return zero--buf is ignored in that case--and inflateBack() will return a buffer error. inflateBack() will call out(out_desc, buf, len) to write the uncompressed data buf[0..len-1]. out() should return zero on success, or non-zero on failure. If out() returns non-zero, inflateBack() will return with an error. Neither in() nor out() are permitted to change the contents of the window provided to inflateBackInit(), which is also the buffer that out() uses to write from. The length written by out() will be at most the window size. Any non-zero amount of input may be provided by in().

For convenience, inflateBack() can be provided input on the first call by setting strm->Znext_in and strm->Zavail_in. If that input is exhausted, then in() will be called. Therefore strm->Znext_in must be initialized before calling inflateBack(). If strm->Znext_in is Z_NULL, then in() will be called immediately for input. If strm->Znext_in is not Z_NULL, then strm->Zavail_in must also be initialized, and then if strm->Zavail_in is not zero, input will initially be taken from strm->Znext_in[0 .. strm->Zavail_in - 1].

The in_desc and out_desc parameters of inflateBack() is passed as the first parameter of in() and out() respectively when they are called. These descriptors can be optionally used to pass any information that the caller- supplied in() and out() functions need to do their job.

On return, inflateBack() will set strm->Znext_in and strm->Zavail_in to pass back any unused input that was provided by the last in() call. The return values of inflateBack() can be Z_STREAM_END on success, Z_BUF_ERROR if in() or out() returned an error, Z_DATA_ERROR if there was a format error in the deflate stream (in which case strm->Zmsg is set to indicate the nature of the error), or Z_STREAM_ERROR if the stream was not properly initialized. In the case of Z_BUF_ERROR, an input or output error can be distinguished using strm->Znext_in which will be Z_NULL only if in() returned an error. If strm->Znext_in is not Z_NULL, then the Z_BUF_ERROR was due to out() returning non-zero. (in() will always be called before out(), so strm->Znext_in is assured to be defined if out() returns non-zero.) Note that inflateBack() cannot return Z_OK.

integer inflateBackEnd (z_streamp strm)
All memory allocated by inflateBackInit() is freed. inflateBackEnd() returns Z_OK on success, or Z_STREAM_ERROR if the stream state was inconsistent.
 
atom zlibCompileFlags ()
Return flags indicating compile-time options.

     Checksum functions

     These functions are not related to compression but are exported anyway because they might be useful in applications using the compression library.

Function list

Function description

atom adler32 (atom adler, object buf)
Update a running Adler-32 checksum with the bytes in buf and return the updated checksum. If buf is Z_NULL, this function returns the required initial value for the checksum.

An Adler-32 checksum is almost as reliable as a CRC32 but can be computed much faster. Usage example:

     adler = adler32(0, Z_NULL)

buffer = ""

while not(equal(buffer, -1)) do
buffer = read_buffer(len)
adler = adler32(adler, buffer)
end while
if adler != original_adler then
error()
end if

atom crc32 (atom crc, object buf)
Update a running crc with the bytes in buf and return the updated crc. If buf is Z_NULL, this function returns the required initial value for the crc. Pre- and post-conditioning (one's complement) is performed within this function so it shouldn't be done by the application. Usage example:
     crc = crc32(0, {})

buffer = {}
while not(equal(buffer, -1)) do

buffer = read_buffer(len)
crc = crc32(crc, buffer)
end while

if crc != original_crc then
error()
end if


     struct z_stream_s

global constant --struct z_stream_s {
Znext_in = 0, -- Bytef*-- pointer to next input byte
Zavail_in = 4, -- uInt -- number of bytes available at Znext_in
Ztotal_in = 8, -- uLong -- total number of input bytes read so far

Znext_out = 12, -- Bytef*-- next output byte should be put here (at the place pointed to)
Zavail_out = 16,-- uInt -- remaining free space at Znext_out
Ztotal_out = 20,-- uLong -- total number of bytes output so far

Zmsg = 24, --char* -- last error message, NULL if no error
Zstate = 28, --struct internal_state*-- not visible by applications

Zalloc = 32, -- alloc_func -- used to allocate the internal Zstate
Zfree = 36, -- free_func -- used to free the internal Zstate
Zopaque = 40, -- voidpf -- private data object passed to Zalloc and Zfree

Zdata_type = 44,-- int -- best guess about the data type: ascii or binary
Zadler = 48, -- uLong -- adler32 value of the uncompressed data
Zreserved = 52 -- uLong -- reserved for future use
--} z_stream

global function z_streamp(object setup)
       Allocates space for a z_stream. setup contains optional data to fill the structure with. It must contain all 14 values.

The application must update Znext_in and Zavail_in when Zavail_in has dropped to zero. It must update Znext_out and Zavail_out when Zavail_out has dropped to zero. The application must initialize Zalloc,Zfree and Zopaque before calling the init function. All other fields are set by the compression library and must not be updated by the application.

The Zopaque value provided by the application will be passed as the first parameter for calls of Zalloc and Zfree. This can be useful for custom memory management. The compression library attaches no meaning to the Zopaque value.

Zalloc must return Z_NULL if there is not enough memory for the object. If zlib is used in a multi-threaded application, Zalloc and Zfree must be thread safe.

The fields Ztotal_in and Ztotal_out can be used for statistics or progress reports. After compression, Ztotal_in holds the total size of the uncompressed data and may be saved for use in the decompressor (particularly if the decompressor wants to decompress everything in a single step).


     Constants

-- Allowed flush values ; see deflate() below for details
global constant Z_NO_FLUSH = 0,
Z_PARTIAL_FLUSH = 1,
-- will be removed, use Z_SYNC_FLUSH instead
Z_SYNC_FLUSH = 2,
Z_FULL_FLUSH = 3,
Z_FINISH = 4,
Z_BLOCK = 5


-- * Return codes for the compression/decompression functions. Negative

-- * values are errors, positive values are used for special but normal events.
-- *
global constant Z_OK = 0,
Z_STREAM_END = 1,
Z_NEED_DICT = 2,
Z_ERRNO = -1,
Z_STREAM_ERROR = -2,
Z_DATA_ERROR = -3,
Z_MEM_ERROR = -4,
Z_BUF_ERROR = -5,
Z_VERSION_ERROR = -6


-- Compression Levels
global constant Z_NO_COMPRESSION = 0,
Z_BEST_SPEED = 1,
Z_BEST_COMPRESSION = 9,
Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION = -1


-- compression strategy ; see deflateInit2() above for details
global constant Z_FILTERED = 1,
Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY = 2,
Z_RLE = 3,
Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY = 0


-- Possible values of the Zdata_type field (though see inflate())
global constant Z_BINARY = 0,
Z_ASCII = 1,
Z_UNKNOWN = 2


-- The deflate compression method (the only one supported in this version)

global constant Z_DEFLATED = 8


global constant Z_NULL = 0 -- for initializing Zalloc, Zfree, Zopaque


     Callback Functions

  These functions are used for callbacks with inflateBack().
function in_func(atom in_desc, atom lplpbuf)
returns atom
function out_func(atom out_desc, atom lpbuf, atom len)
returns integer


     Misc

     deflateInit, inflateInit, deflateInit2, inflateInit2 and inflateBackInit are macros to allow checking the zlib version and the compiler's view of z_stream. Use deflateInit_, inflateInit_, deflateInit2_, inflateInit2_ and inflateBackInit_ for the real functions. Check zlib.e for parameter declarations.

Other functions:

sequence zError (integer err)
integer inflateSyncPoint (z_streamp z)
sequence get_crc_table ()

Last update: Wed Mar 12 15:30:00 2003
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