vadi@cs.iastate.edu (Vadivelu Elumalai) (04/16/91)
Recently I read about many compression techniques used for text compression. It seems there are two methods to compress text, dictionary method and statistical method. I want to know the algorithm used in the unix text compression utilities compress/decompress. This has to be a standard algorithm since it is possible to decompress the text compressed by another machine. Is there a GURU who can explain this? Thanks. Vadi. -- Vadivelu Elumalai, U.Snail : 813, Wilson Avenue, B-20, Atanasoff, Ames, Iowa - 50010. Iowa State University, AT&T : (515) - 232 - 7220 Ames, IA - 50010 E-mail : vadi@judy.cs.iastate.edu
urban@cbnewsl.att.com (john.urban) (04/16/91)
Compress basically uses the Algorithm from IEEE Computer Vol 17, No 6 (June 1984) Where as pack basically uses the Huffman encoding algorithm Sincerely, John Urban
gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) (04/17/91)
In article <vadi.671773259@judy.cs.iastate.edu> vadi@cs.iastate.edu (Vadivelu Elumalai) writes: >I want to know the algorithm used in the unix text compression utilities >compress/decompress. It's basically the Limpel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) scheme, which is a dynamic dictionary method that encodes variable-length "runs" of bytes. There was a basic summary of compression methods posted just the other day to the Usenet "comp.compression" newsgroup; if you haven't yet expired it you should read that article.