Zlib

zlib ('zi:lIb or "zeta-lib", 'zi:t@,lIb) is a software library used for data compression as well as a data format. zlib was written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler and is an abstraction of the DEFLATE compression algorithm used in their gzip file compression program. zlib is also a crucial component of many software platforms, including Linux, macOS, and iOS. It has also been used in gaming consoles such as the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Wii, Xbox One and Xbox 360. The first public version of Zlib, 0.9, was released on 1 May 1995 and was originally intended for use with the libpng image library. It is free software, distributed under the zlib License. Raw DEFLATE compressed data (RFC 1951) are typically written with a zlib or gzip wrapper encapsulating the data, by adding a header and footer. This provides stream identification and error detection that are not provided by the raw DEFLATE data. The zlib wrapper (RFC 1950) is smaller that the gzip wrapper (RFC 1952), as the latter stores a file name and other file system information. zlib only supports one algorithm, called DEFLATE, which uses a combination of a variation of LZ77 (Lempel–Ziv 1977) and Huffman coding. This algorithm provides good compression on a wide variety of data with minimal use of system resources. This is also the algorithm used in the . The header makes allowance for other algorithms, but none are currently implemented. zlib provides facilities for control of processor and memory use. A compression level value may be supplied that trades speed for compression. There are also facilities for conserving memory, useful in restricted memory environments, such as some embedded systems. The compression can be optimized for specific types of data. If one is using the library to always compress specific types of data, then using a specific strategy may improve compression and performance. For example, if the data contain long lengths of repeated bytes, the run-length encoding (RLE) strategy may give good results at a higher speed.