GZip File Reading

[Lars T. Kyllingstad]

On Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:34:29 -0800, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

> On Wednesday 09 March 2011 21:10:59 Daniel Gibson wrote:
>> Am 10.03.2011 05:53, schrieb dsimcha:
>> > I noticed last night that Phobos actually has all the machinations
>> > required for reading gzipped files, buried in etc.c.zlib. I've wanted
>> > a high-level D interface for reading and writing compressed files
>> > with an API similar to "normal" file I/O for a while. I'm thinking
>> > about what the easiest/best design would be. At a high level there
>> > are two designs:
>> > 
>> > 1. Hack std.stdio.file to support gzipped formats. This would allow
>> > an identical interface for "normal" and compressed I/O. It would also
>> > allow reuse of things like ByLine. However, it would require major
>> > refactoring of File to decouple it from the C file I/O routines so
>> > that it could call either the C or GZip ones depending on how it's
>> > configured. Probably, it would make sense to make an interface that
>> > wraps I/O functions and make an instance for C and one for gzip, with
>> > bzip2 and other goodies possibly being added later.
>> > 
>> > 2. Write something completely separate. This would keep
>> > std.stdio.File doing one thing well (wrapping C file I/O) but would
>> > be more of a PITA for the user and possibly result in code
>> > duplication.
>> > 
>> > I'd like to get some comments on what an appropriate API design and
>> > implementation for writing gzipped files would be. Two key
>> > requirements are that it must be as easy to use as std.stdio.File and
>> > it must be easy to extend to support other single-file compression
>> > formats like bz2.
>> 
>> Maybe a proper stream API would help. It could provide ByLine etc,
>> could be used for any kind of compression format (as long as an
>> appropriate input-stream is provided), ...
>> (analogous for writing)
> 
> That was my thought. We really need proper streams...
> 
> The other potential issue with compressed files is that they can contain
> directories and such.

Not gzip and bzip2 compressed files.  They only contain a single file.

-Lars