Re: [Lzip-bug] lzip status display and use of lzlib

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Hello Jan.

Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> Could something similar be implemented in lzip and plzip?

Xz deviates too much from the user interface of similar unix-like tools 
(not only compressors). This already looks ugly when xz is used with zutils.

Maybe some less intrusive status display for compression could be 
implemented in lzip and plzip.


> Also, plzip currently makes use of lzlib, but lzip(-1.14) does not. Are 
> there plans to make lzip use the library as well?

Why?

There are some advantages in using a tailored (de)compression code in 
lzip. For example, having two separate implementations which produce 
identical compressed data makes it much more difficult for any bug to go 
unnoticed.

Also lzip can be used in machines with little memory because it does not 
use a library and can allocate the data structures after reading the 
file. Just try compressing a small file (a few bytes) with lzip, plzip 
and xz at level -9 and compare the amount of memory needed by each.


Best regards,
Antonio.