Simtel MSDOS 1992 September/Simtel20_Sept92.cdr/msdos/turbo_c/comprs12.arc/READ.ME

Text File | 1988-08-10 | 2KB | 29 lines

    This is the source and executable versions of compress, modified to
compile with Turbo C.  The version I got was modified to compile with
MSC; I've changed some stuff so that it will compile under Turbo C and
I fixed some problems that with the DOS version.
     It is useful in transfering files with Unix systems, since text files
are often compressed by about 50%, thus halving transmission time.  Also,
it is a nice compression utility for single files since you don't have to do
an archive listing to see what is in the file.  Unlike archiving utilities
it automatically removes the (un)compressed version when you compress/
uncompress.  Finally, if the program is named zcat.exe it will behave the
same way compress does on Unix systems when invoked under that name; this can
be very useful.
     Unfortunately piping stuff into compress on DOS does not seem to work
well, and you can't pipe into uncompress because DOS is braindead about piping
binary files; it stops writing to the temporary file when it encounters ^Z.
     I could only get it to compile in the small model (12-bit version) under
Turbo C.  This means that it can only uncompress files that were compressed
using 12 bit codes, so if a file is to be compressed on some other system and
uncompressed on DOS it should be compressed with the -b12 flag.  The 12 bit
version has the advantage that it will work with much less free memory and
is faster, though the compression is not quite as good.
     Remember to use the -i (image) flag when compressing and uncompressing
binary files under DOS.
     If anyone fixes the piping-to-compress problem or gets a >12bit version
to compile, please let me know.

    John DuBois
    [e-mail]