GZip File Reading

[Daniel Gibson]

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)

Cheers,
- Daniel