Re: UNIX Compressed Files From A PC

[Gautier <gautier.demontmollin@maths.unine.ch>]

Marin D. Condic:

> Thanks for that info. I'll have another go around with gzip to see if we
> can do something with it. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about the
> compression format. It is what it is and I can't change it because the
> data is produced by another system/group. But if gzip will recognize the
> LZW files and decompress them, that may provide an answer.

The file format is not completely linked to the algorithm to compress the
files. Some compressors for GIF avoid using LZW because of the patent - as
I've read in some sources you find on the Internet, anyway.
The 7-Zip compressor seems to use a recent algorithm to create .zip files
with much better compression but same file format - hence, unzippable normally.

If you can mimic the file format (Huffman tables etc.) for the .z (or .Z ?)
files by customising Unzip-Ada it could arrange things (just an idea of
course...).

______________________________________________________
Gautier  --  http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm