Re: UNIX Compressed Files From A PC

["Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@acm.org>]

E. Robert Tisdale wrote:
> Are you sure that this is the correct approach?
> Wouldn't you be better off to download a copy of
> the `compress' and `uncompress' programs for Windows
> from the Simtel archives and make Win32 system calls
> from your Ada program to execute uncompress
> and leave the uncompressed data in a file
> that you can open and read normally?

A) Please point me at the Simtel archives in the event that there is
maybe something useful there.

B) I can't change the requirements. The file is not to be uncompressed
into a regular old file sitting on a disk that I can easily read with
plain vanilla I/O. That would be too easy. Hell, I could have done that
by typing "uncompress <filename>" at the Unix command line. Where's the
sport in that? :-) For what they're paying me to do this, they could
have bought a dozen 100gigabyte drives and just left the data
uncompressed. Disks are cheap. Engineers cost money. Go figure. (If it
helps you understand it, know that this is a job for the government.)

I really have to do Open/Read/Write/Seek/Close - just like in the
LZExpand package in the Win32Ada binding. Sorry. That's the requirement.
Wish I didn't have to mess with this, but there you have it. Life is
hard, and *then* you die! If you can direct me to something that will
meet that requirement, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

MDC
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