bzip2 and libbzip2 - Introduction

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.

@parindent 0mm @parskip 2mm

This program, `bzip2`, and associated library `libbzip2`, are Copyright (C) 1996-1998 Julian R Seward. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
- 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.
- Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
- The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Julian Seward, Guildford, Surrey, UK.

`jseward@acm.org`

`http://www.muraroa.demon.co.uk`

`bzip2`/`libbzip2` version 0.9.0 of 23 August 1998.

PATENTS: To the best of my knowledge, `bzip2` does not use any patented algorithms. However, I do not have the resources available to carry out a full patent search. Therefore I cannot give any guarantee of the above statement.

# 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.

Chapter 2 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. Chapter 3 describes the programming interfaces in detail, and Chapter 4 records some miscellaneous notes which I thought ought to be recorded somewhere.

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.