Re: UNIX Compressed Files From A PC

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

E. Robert Tisdale wrote:
> I don't think you can do this
> because, well, compressed files are compressed.
> Generally, you can't simply modify the compressed file.
> You must uncompress it, make the modification, then recompress it.
> You can get an entirely different bit pattern in your compressed file
> even if you are making very small changes.

Apparently everyone is reading my requirement to be able to read and
write compressed files to mean that I want Read/Write access to a
compressed file. I don't. I want to be able to open a sequential,
compressed file for read access and read the bytes getting them
decompressed from the read routine. I want to open a sequential,
compressed file for write access and write bytes to it, getting them
compressed by the write routine. I also want to be able to seek to a
specific byte position within a read-access file. (Yes, I know that
doing a seek backwards will be painfully slow, but I mostly need to seek
forward.) That's it. No more. This will be good enough. Thank you. And
that's all I need - and this paddle game! :-) (Look at Win32.LZExpand if
you want to see exactly what I need.)

I do not want read/write access to a sequential file. Most programming
languages and operating systems that I know of don't generally allow
this because it would be painful to do in a general way. I clearly
understand that attempting read/write access to a *compressed*
sequential file would be even worse.

I hope this clarifies.

MDC
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